The Awesomesteristic Adventures of Sister Smurf

speaking in church

2011-05-17T19:20:00.001-06:00

I will report my mission in sacrament meeting in the Smithfield 20th ward (120 S. 600 E. Smithfield, UT) on Sunday, May 29th at 11:00 am. All are welcome to attend!

sister humpherys

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more pictures

2011-05-16T09:16:00.001-06:00

that's all she wrote

2011-05-16T09:13:00.000-06:00

Well, well, well. I'm kind of in a haze. It hasn't really sunk in that I'm going home, so that's not the issue. What's crazy is that S. Charsley is getting transferred! We both just barely got here, and the elders before us were just here one transfer. Oh the poor area! We were 99.999% sure S. Charsley wasn't leaving because she was going to go to Columbus today so S. Spindler and I could carpool up today. The assistants called this morning, giving S. Charsley only like 3 hours to pack and us to wrap up the area. Oh no! I called the assistants and told them how ridiculous that was, so we worked it out for S. Taylor to come here instead of S. Charsley going to Columbus so she can have more time to pack and wrap up the area. Oh nuts. It's crazy! I sure hope the new missionaries (assuming there are new ones coming here) do a good job.

I forgot something about zone conference. We watched a clip of a talk from Elder Holland at the MTC in January. He was talking about how after Christ died, the apostles were kind of clueless of what to do next. Peter suggested doing what they did before, go fishing. Elder Holland then talked about the experience with the fishes and Christ's question of "do you love me?" three times, in a way that only Elder Holland can. Picture his tone from his awesome BOM talk. That's what it was like when he was explaining the situation. Christ was saying, "really? fishing? I called you to be my apostles - FOREVER. Go feed my sheep!" Man, it was so powerful, and I can't even do it justice. But it was awesome. I've never quite seen that story that way. We are called to be his servants FOREVER, not just for 2 years or 18 months. Wow. I love Elder Holland.

As we walked out of the library last week, we ran into (almost literally) a guy named Tim. We tracted in to him at his sister's house and then he stood us up. Then we found his house (not on purpose) and set up another time. He stood us up again. He was kind of borderline, and we couldn't tell if he was really interested. We decided we'd wait to hear from him. Well, when we saw him last week, he said that just yesterday he had bought a BOM at a garage sale for 10 cents. Hmm. We're not sure really what to do with him. I don't think it's coincidence that we keep running in to him, but I don't know if he really wants to learn right now.

We met with Frank on Monday with S. Johnson and we talked about repentance. It was a really great lesson! He shared that his first thoughts about repentance were that it's a bad thing, and as we shared, we could really tell his view was changing. Autumn shared that God is just so happy when we repent and His is the attitude of "welcome back, I'm so glad you're home." Frank really liked that concept. We left with him Alma 36 to read, in addition to continuing on in 1 Nephi. We had S. Scoresby back with us for the Friday visit. Friday is when I broke the news to Frank that I would be leaving. He was super bummed, but so grateful for the 5 weeks that we've had to visit. I really think that I was sent here for him. Others too, but especially him. He mentioned that he has thought often of how neat it would be to have dinner in a member's home with us and just visit. :) We'll work that out. He told us that he's never had faith like he has now. Oh, it was so perfect! I wish I could've recorded that to put on a Mormon Messages thing or something. We tell people all the time that we're here to strengthen their faith, and Frank bore witness of that! Frank is just so awesome. He told us he'd read 1 Nephi 11-17 as well as Alma 36, and he really liked it. He said he finds himself at work, just waiting to get home so he can read the BOM. !!!! We shared Pres. Uchtdorf's talk with him "Waiting on the Road to Damascus". We asked him what his thoughts were, and he told us that just right before we came, he was thinking about how he needed to read the stories of Paul and Samuel so that he could tell his sons about their namesakes. Then, insert us with our lesson that started out with the story of Saul. How neat was that! We then talked a little about the story of Samuel. Frank thinks a lot about his kids and feels bad that he hasn't brought them up to be religious. He really wants it for them. S. Scoresby shared a really neat story - though I can't remember how it exactly fit in with the lesson. She told of how earlier that night they were at the school carnival, and she turned around just in time to see her daughter go the wrong way and start to get lost. There was a big crowd of people, so it was all Sister Scoresby could do to follow her daughter. She could see her daughter getting frantic and nervous. Finally, her daughter turned around and saw her mom. Sister Scoresby told her, "you were safe, I was watching you the whole time." What a perfect analogy to how God sees us. Frank really liked it. Frank had asked me to say the opening prayer, and he asked me to say the closing prayer too, but I convinced him that he should pray since it was my last visit. I love his prayers! They are so real and so sincere! He started out with "Thanks a lot God!!" It took me off guard, and I just had to smile. He then added "I'm coming to church on Sunday! I'm really excited!" Oh I just love him! He did come to church. It was stake conference (a broadcast), so it wasn't our normal meetings. But the talks were good. And it turns out he knows Mark Anderson from the ward. Samuel and Josh are friends from school. Brother Anderson came over and talked to him and that was awesome as he offered to help out with lessons and such and have Josh get Samuel involved. Yay! Brother Anderson told us afterwards that he didn't even recognize Frank because his countenance had changed so much, and he was so much happier. This gospel is true! Frank gave me some poems as a gift, in addition to writing me a short little poem about his appreciation for us. Can I say one more time, I just love him!

We had dinner with Sondrah and Vincent Wednesday. Tuesday she had her baptism interview and passed! But E. Lowe called that night and said there were some things she didn't quite understand. Based on what he said, it sounded like she wasn't ready for baptism, but he felt the Spirit really strongly say that she was. So after dinner, we went over the few things that E. Lowe was worried about. She knew them all, she just clammed up in the interview. Whew! Friday we went and taught them about temples and family history work. Vincent especially was really interested in family history work, and Sondrah really liked the idea of temple work. How neat! They've both got lots of work that can be done! Saturday, Sondrah got baptized. YAY!!!! There weren't as many people from the ward there as I would've liked, but there were people there. It was really great. Vincent gave the opening prayer, and it was so good. He was nervous, but it was perfect.

We met with Steve on Thursday and Sister Ficklin came out with us. She was awesome! She was really bold and asked him if he wanted to know the truth and if he thought it was possible to know the truth. We talked about the spirit world some, and then focused mostly on real intent. We testified to him that answers are available. He knows he doesn't have the answers, but he doesn't realize that he can have the answers and that it doesn't have to be a mystery. He told us he didn't really care about what happens after death, because he thinks that this life is more important than worrying about that. We explained how knowing what's ahead helps us live better here. We left him with 2 Nephi 31 to read about what we have to do here in this life, and asked him to ponder about whether he really wants to know that this is true. It was a good lesson, definitely gave him a lot to think about.

Thursday night the Marlers from Kokomo came all the way down to take us out to dinner and say goodbye. Now that's love - a 2 hour (one way) trip just to see me. Oh it was good to see them.

Friday we visited with Sister Robinson again. We talked about the Atonement from Bruce C. Hafen's talk "The Atonement: All for All". Rather than being uplifted by it, she felt overwhelmed. :( We helped her to see how great a gift the Atonement is, and it allows us to not have to be perfect. We talked a lot about how to pull up the weeds and plant the flowers in our gardens. She gets overwhelmed and tries to do everything all at once. We helped her to see that she needs to take baby steps, and focus on the things she knows need changing, and then worry about the others as they come. It really helped her out, and gave her some relief. She's making really great progress! She told us that she'd been reading a lot in the BOM and praying a lot, and she felt that 2 Nephi 4 that we left her last time really spoke to her. Yay! She came to Sondrah's baptism, and she loved it! She really felt the Spirit. I'm so glad she came!

We met with Tim again. He's doing really great. He's continuing to share the gospel in small ways with his family. He's planning on moving back to Alaska soon. :( He knows where the church is there though, so that's good. His mom has been coming to church with him, though after he moves, I don't know that she'll get herself up on time on her own. Hopefully!

At a dinner appointment Friday, Sister Tibbs commented that she really liked the exchange sign up sheet that we pass around that has a little information about the people on it. She said in the whole 9 years she's been here, she's never seen that. I then thought about it and realized, hey, I've never done that! Our first week here when I decided to do it, it didn't seem like a new idea or anything, it was just something that needed to be done, just like passing around our dinner calendar. I guess that was the Spirit working so closely with my mind that I didn't even realize it. Neat!

Saturday we stopped in to see Jane. She had been baptized back in 2008, but then in 2009 she had her name removed. The sisters in December had been working with her a lot, but the elders right before us tried to visit her and she said she was going to a Pentecostal church and she was happy there. Sister Ludema in the ward asked us about her so we decided we'd go stop by. She yelled from behind the door asking who it was and then she said she was sick and we should try calling her. We asked for her number, and then she just decided to open the door. She didn't seem too interested in talking to us; she said she was sick. So I asked if there was anything we could do for her, and that really softened her heart. Apparently she feels like no one cares about her or wants to help her. We ended up talking to her for an hour in her doorway. (Tired feet!) But she said she was actually thinking about calling us because she doesn't like the yelling and screaming at the Pentecostal church. But she said she felt too ashamed to call. So, what a "coincidence" that we stopped by at that time. She's got a lot of questions and doubts, but she's interested to visit and talk. She looks like she may be coming back!

We stopped by Karen and finally got back in touch with her. We sat down with her and her husband and taught them about the BOM. They were both really interested in it. Bob started flipping through the pictures and reading some of the introduction. We invited them to read and pray about it, and they said they would. Then in return, they gave us some free cereal. Perfect timing because I had just ran out! :) They are such nice people. I can really see them joining the church.

We saw Micki yesterday, and we finally got down to the root of it. She's really wrapped up in worrying about what other people think. She realizes that she needs to get over that, because church is not about that. It was neat because she said she didn't want to feel like she had to do things, she wanted to do things because she wanted to, and that's something that she's working on. As we talked about the importance of the basics - reading and praying - she said she felt the Spirit tell her that it was right, and she said she wanted to do it. Yay! We gave her a sign that said "optimum turbulence penetration speed" that she loved from Pres. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most", and she just loved it.

Well, I thought I was done proselyting yesterday. But God just loves to bless me apparently! I was sitting here writing this email, and the girl sitting next to me (Consuela) saw my name tag and asked where I went to church. She said she's been looking for a church. I asked where she lived so I could tell her which building and meeting time. I couldn't remember which area her address was in. But just then, the zone leaders walked in. So I flagged them down. She's a YSA, so she's theirs. What perfect timing! They set up a time to meet with her this week, and she seemed really interested. After they walked off, I continued to talk to her and find out a little about her. I told her the YSA group has FHE tonight, and she sounded like she was going to come. Wahoo! I love miracles!

It really still hasn't hit me yet that I'm done here. Maybe it won't hit me til the mission home, maybe the airport. Maybe not til I wake up at home. I've imagined this day in my mind many times and what I would be thinking and feeling. I thought that I'd be kicking myself for not doing more and having some regrets. But I really feel at peace. No I wasn't perfect and I dropped the ball sometimes. But I feel like I did a good job and that I've really grown in the process. Especially in my relationship with Jesus Christ and my application of the Atonement in my life. "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith"

sister smurf

miracles, miracles

2011-05-02T13:37:00.001-06:00

PICTURES: Charles, Tara, Darrel
Tim and us
us, Joanie (girlfriend), Tim, Pres. Snow, Jean (Tim's mom)
Charles & Tara
Charles and us
Hostess outlet store :)
E. Swain trying to use chopsticks

Hey everyone! Man, a few good days of nice weather, and now we're back to the rain. Luckily no tornadoes here, though there have been tornado sirens. Apparently a small tornado touched down in Indy. But S. Charsley and I just sleep through all the storms. I'm surprised, what with our crappy mattresses and all.

So we met with Frank Monday night. He told us he had not had a good week. He did some "research" about the BOM online. He told us he was really sad because the connection with God that he'd felt since meeting with us, he felt like he lost it that week. (Go figure, that's what happens when you read anti.) He was not closed off to the BOM though, he just asked what our view on the scientific studies was. Sister Scoresby was awesome and talked about faith and really focused on what was important - how you feel when you read it. Frank told us that he'd had the best feelings in his whole life since meeting with us. We taught him about the Spirit and we pointed out that he lost that Spirit when he read the other material. I hate when Satan throws down the gauntlet on a poor, unsuspecting investigator. We encouraged Frank to read in the BOM and pray specifically to know that it's true, and those good feelings will come back. He hasn't prayed specifically about the BOM (or about anything, since he just has an open communication with God throughout the day), and he readily admitted that. The lesson was good, but we were so sad for his set back. I guess there had to be some little hiccup, otherwise his investigation/progression would be too perfect. :) We invited him to the double baptism on Saturday, and he came! He really enjoyed it, and he felt the Spirit. We got lots of people to introduce themselves to him, and it was great. A few people asked him what he thought about the baptism, and he said he felt good, but anything further, he'd have to go home and reflect on it. We're meeting with him tonight, and I'm excited to see what he has to say. He keeps saying he really wants a church home, but there's something that's standing in the way of him coming to church. I don't know what it is yet. Maybe it's just a fear of this church being too good to be true? I don't know. Hopefully we'll find that out as well tonight.

We met with Karen Tuesday and Thursday. We tracted into her Saturday morning, and we talked for like 20 minutes. We came back Tuesday and she talked forever. It really helped us get to know her though, so that's good. We shared a little bit about the Restoration, and we told her next time we wanted to dive right in to our unique message. We asked Sister Peper to come out with us. She agreed, but then Karen had to change times, and it wasn't going to work out with Sister Peper's schedule. A few minutes later though, Sister Peper called us back and said that she really wanted to come out with us, so she was going to make her schedule work. God has His way of making things happen. Sister Peper fell in love with Karen (I don't know how anyone could not love her!) and she really wants to come back next time we teach. Yay for experiences that increase the members' desire to come out with us! We shared part of the Restoration, and Karen was really open to it. When we talked briefly of the BOM, she said "Oh, I need to get me one of those." I think we can take care of that. ;)

Tuesday we met with Sondrah again. The elders before us taught her most of the doctrine lessons, and we've been covering the commandments. Because of this, we were not sure where exactly her testimony was. We knew she wanted to be baptized, but we weren't sure of her understanding of the need for this baptism. So we asked her the baptism interview question that deals with knowing Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson are prophets, and she readily agreed. We then taught about the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end, and she was really impressed to see in Acts 19 that the laying on of hands is recorded in the Bible, yet other churches don't do that. She said she was going to call her grandma as soon as we left and ask her why her church doesn't do that. hehe. Needless to say, we are no longer wondering about Sondrah's testimony. We asked her how her quitting smoking was coming, and she said she's working on it. We told her that to be baptized on May 14th, she has to be smoke free as of April 30. She said ok. She's got the determination to do it. Once she knows something is required, she just does it. It's awesome. We went over Friday and taught her and Vincent (LA) about tithing and fasting. They accepted it well, and Vincent even suggested they should pay tithing and fast before we could even finish up the principle and commit them to do it. I just love them both. They're so willing to do what's required.

On Wednesday, an appointment fell through, so we called up Sister Petty to see if we could come visit. We had Sister Anderson with us who went to pick her up for church last week but she slept in. We went and had an awesome lesson on the Atonement. Erica struggles with feeling that it applies to her. We brought in an object lesson that I learned from Bishop Marler in Kokomo. We had Erica write "Erica's sins" in a sharpie marker on a white board. She was hesitant because she didn't want to ruin our board. We told her it was fine. She wrote it at the top, really small so as to not ruin the whole board. We then talked about how she'd been trying to make changes on her own and we had her try to erase the words. It just smeared a little, but it was still there. Then comes the red dry erase marker, to symbolize the blood of Christ. I covered all the sharpie writing, and then erased, and the board came clean. I was not prepared for Erica's reaction. I thought she'd think it was lame or kind of cool. But she broke down crying. It really touched her. I think it's been a while since she felt the Spirit like that, or at all. She recognized she needed to make some changes, but she's worried and hesitant because she has to change basically her whole lifestyle and her friends. It'll be hard, but she can do it if she wants. I was grateful we got to meet with her.

Wednesday we met with Tim at the Snow's house and talked about Priesthood and service. I felt it was a decent lesson, but on Friday we met Tim and his girlfriend Joanie at the church for his last lesson, and Joanie said Tim was kind of nervous. We asked him about it, and he had gotten the impression that getting baptized would mean that he was going to have to give up all of his time to go help people. He was thinking along the lines of him having to be a full time missionary like us. We allayed his concerns and helped him see that the Lord wouldn't give him anything that he wasn't ready for. We then had to adapt our lesson a little bit, because we planned to teach about missionary work. Go figure. It was a good discussion though, and Tim was feeling much more comfortable. Joanie got Tim a quad and a scripture case as a baptism gift! How awesome!

We met with Charles for his last two lessons, and one of them included chicken Parmesan. Yum! Charles is a great cook! It also included Darrel (4 years old) flirting with S. Charsley. Oh, it was so cute. We talked a bit about missionary work, service, temple work, and teaching and learning - all things that Charles already knows. It's been interesting trying to teach him since he's already been converted, and he already lives these things pretty much. He talked about again, telling his mother-in-law that he appreciated us sisters because we brought something new to the table that the elders couldn't. I still haven't figured out what that is, but Charles saw it, and that's all that matters.

Sister Forrest came with us again to see Sister Robinson. They went to the stake Relief Society meeting last week together, and Sister Robinson loved it! She spent most of our visit talking about it. She and Sister Forrest have become good friends already. I'm convinced that that is what's going to get her back to church. She's ready, she just has to make the commitment to come. She'll be such a great asset to the ward, and I know the ward will just love her.

We finished 1 Nephi with Peter this week! He's getting better each time. I can testify of the power of the Spirit in giving us what we need. This week we read some Isaiah chapters, and Peter is still not fully able to comprehend the BOM on his own due to his stroke. So we usually read a few verses, and then me or S. Charsley will explain what it means. I was nervous about the Isaiah chapters, because I don't really understand them all that well. But we were able to help him understand. Definitely a gift of the Spirit! Hopefully that same gift is available when we get to the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi!

We tracted an ornery street Saturday afternoon. I think it's the most angry/rude people on one street that I've seen my whole mission. I jokingly asked S. Charsley why she picked an ornery street. We then decided it was Satan's only hope in making Saturday not a perfect day (with a double baptism in the evening). It didn't work though! We met a really nice older lady named Shirley. She let us in and she was just so sweet. We told her a little about our church and invited her to attend. She seemed interested in checking it out as she doesn't have a church right now, and her friend told her to try at least 3 churches before deciding on one. I'm not sure whether she'll investigate or not, but she sure was a ray of sunshine to us!

The double baptism of Tim and Charles was awesome! The Spirit was so strong! There were a lot of people there to support them. Tim's mom came, and she really felt the Spirit. One of Charles' nephews who is 7 (and not a member) walked in to the church and told his grandma (a member) that it felt different and asked why. He said it felt good, and it was something kind of familiar. How neat, that even a child can recognize the Spirit. Charles has been working with the YM, so the talks were given by the deacons and teachers quorum presidents. They did a great job. The deacons quorum president - Pres. Ficklin - really impresses me. I've heard him speak/bear his testimony 3 times now, and he makes me cry every time. I am so moved by how powerful he is. He is going to make an awesome elder some day.

Yesterday we met with a referral from the Bedford elders. They met him at his dad's house a few weeks ago, and they had talked with him a bit and asked if he'd like to know more and they'd send some missionaries. All we knew about him was that he was Baptist and interested in learning. So we went and found out quickly that he is a man of strong faith, who believes what God says, and doesn't depend only on what men say. He emphasized the need to have a change of heart and to know things by the Spirit. He asked us about Joseph Smith, and we laid out the pride/apostasy-dispensation cycle for him. He agreed with the pattern we talked about. We told him that Joseph Smith was the beginning of the cycle again, as he was called to be a prophet. He kind of went off a bit and talked about the need for Christ, etc. We reassured him that yes, we do need Christ, and Joseph Smith in no way replaces Christ. It was nice that he was willing to be quiet long enough to hear us out and let us explain our beliefs. Because of that, he came to see where we're coming from. He thanked us for teaching him, so now he could tell other people that we don't worship Joseph Smith. We gave him a BOM and read Moroni 10:3-5, and he made the connection of that with John 14:26, and he really liked how they say the same thing. We really stressed reading and praying to know the truth and finding out through the Spirit. It was so neat to see him open up and soften over the course of our visit. He told us that he couldn't say that the BOM wasn't true, because the Spirit wasn't telling him that. Wahoo! The Spirit was present the whole lesson. I have high hopes for him!

I learned something from our lesson with Bill and also from visiting with John Pherson in Kokomo. I learned the extreme importance of focusing on Christ. I've heard many people say that we elevate Joseph Smith and that leads to people thinking we worship him instead of God and Christ. I always had the mindset of "well if you just listen to our message, you'll understand where Joseph Smith fits in". Bro. Pherson brought up that Christ wasn't mentioned enough at our church. Then in the lesson with Bill, after he brought up the need for Christ, I made a conscious effort to tie everything back to Christ. I was able to see how people can think we elevate Joseph Smith - the whole first lesson builds up to him and his experience and the work he did. I found during the lesson how easy it is to tie everything back to Christ, but I was having to make a conscious effort to do so. How sad! It should be natural! So that's my goal from now on - to blatantly tie everything back to Christ and our dependence on Him. I'm sad to admit that it's taken me so long to figure this out. I think I do a good job when I teach the PoS and the gospel of Jesus Christ, but not in the REST. Along the same lines, testimony meeting yesterday was awesome. Every single testimony mentioned/focused on the Savior and His Atonement. The Spirit was so strong! I loved it! I wish all sacrament meetings were like that - they should be!

Well, that's it for now. Happy May!

sister smurf

I give the best mud bath ever

2011-04-25T11:19:00.001-06:00

PICTURE: It had been raining that day, and we parked on the grass as we tracted a street just before dinner. S. Charsley had to back me when we were ready to go. My wheels spun in the muddy grass as I pulled forward. Unbeknownst to me, it sent mud flying right at S. Charsley! I turned around and wondered why she was still on the other side of the road, and then I saw what you see. I couldn't contain the laughter. Good thing she also has a sense of humor and laughed with me. We went to our dinner and our next appointment with her all muddy. Man, that was quite possibly the funniest thing that has happened on my mission. I'm just glad it wasn't me! :)

I forgot to mention a funny story from last week. We were tracting and one man came to the door and I could just tell he didn't like us. He said to give him 10 points and we only had 2 minutes. We briefly shared part of the Restoration. Then he went off on how lots of people were digging for gold and such during that time in that area, blah, blah, blah. I could tell he just wanted to argue, and I could feel my natural self want to argue back, but I kept a tight rein and I just let him say what he wanted to say. Then he asked what made our story any different or more special than the others. I simply said "it's true" in a very matter-of-factly way. He chuckled, and then slammed the door in disgust. Can't argue with the truth. :)

Hopefully no tornadoes touch down here. Our district leader called one night telling us there was a tornado warning and to get in the bathroom if/when we heard the sirens that night. We didn't hear any sirens, so all is well. I have zonked out every night here (despite the crummy mattresses), so I worried about maybe sleeping through the sirens. Apparently, my fears came true. A few nights ago (on a different night than when our district leader called), there was a huge storm, and the sirens went off. A tornado didn't touch down here, but about an hour away it did - an F4 tornado. It was the same storm that apparently hit the St. Louis airport. S. Charsley and I slept through everything. We had no idea it had even rained that night until people were talking about it the next day. So, we may just end up in Kansas one morning if a tornado hits. :) I think that would be cool.

Monday we got to teach Frank again. Yay! We were so excited for his lesson. He had read 1 Nephi 4-7 like we assigned, and he read chapter 8 that we said was a super good one. He's understanding a lot of it. We asked him what his thoughts/feelings were about the BOM, and he told us he was reading it as if it were truth. YAY! Talk about golden! We taught him the rest of the Plan of Salvation. His beliefs about being judged based on your actions, no fire and burning-like hell, and the like fit so perfectly with the truth. He's so used to his beliefs being different than most people's that I'm not quite sure he sees how in line his beliefs are with the truth. He has truly been taught by the Spirit before even meeting us. We left him with a PoS pamphlet, and I think as he reads it, it will begin to sink in a bit more. He did say that our views did make a lot more sense than anything else he'd heard. Sister Scoresby came with us again (she's so awesome!) and she bore a sweet, powerful testimony of the need for Christ for the PoS to work. It was exactly what we needed to complete the lesson. But, to finish it all off, we invited him to say the closing prayer. He said he doesn't really give formal prayers, but he talks with God all day long. We encouraged him to offer formal prayers in addition to that to know the truth. He was a little hesitant to say the closing prayer, but he said he'd give it a shot. Wow, with the exception of not addressing God or closing in the name of Christ, the prayer was the most perfect prayer ever. It was more than just heartfelt. He was truly having a conversation with God, and talking to Him like he was in the room. I've never heard anyone pray like that (to that extent). S. Charsley and I were in awe of how powerful and tangible his relationship with God is. We raved about it all the way home and talked about trying to make our prayers that good. We weren't able to meet a second time with Frank this week because he went out of town for Easter, but we're meeting with him tonight. I always look forward to his lessons! He's so open and so awesome!

We visited with Sister Robinson, a less active again this week with Sister Forrest. Last week we talked with her about the importance of prayer and reading the BOM to help her with her challenge of lacking patience. She was excited to get a start on that commitment. So this week we followed up, and she was so excited to talk to us! She told us she hadn't been able to do it every day, and she still lost her patience at times, but she had a revelation that morning, and she realized Satan working on her to keep her from feeling the Spirit and reading and praying. She realized that she doesn't have to fight Satan alone. She was so excited that she came to that realization, and it gave her the motivation to keep working at it. It was awesome! We talked about God sometimes breaking us down so that he can help us build back up on the correct foundation - Christ. That really meant a lot to Sister Robinson. We had to leave, but the story keeps going. Sister Forrest felt impressed to go back inside and invite her to the stake Relief Society activity that Saturday. So she went back to invite her, and she came! And she loved it! Sister Forrest is awesome! What a self-proclaimed fellowshipper. I love when that happens. :)

We met with Tim 3 times this week to prepare him for his baptism interview. The first visit we talked about the commandments of praying often and studying the scriptures. We talked a lot about receiving revelation. It was a really great lesson, and Tim pointed out that he really felt the Spirit. He told us he'd been reading in the gospel principles book and he read a story about someone who had prayed each night to know what he needed to repent of, and then he started each day with a prayer. So Tim decided to try that too. He just commits himself to do awesome things! We asked him how much he had read since we met last. He said he didn't read very much, "just a few chapters in 2 Nephi, a chapter in Alma, and I started 3 Nephi". Ha! Not much! We had something akin to a party for his next lesson. We already had Sister Stoddard lined up for an exchange, then Pres. Snow invited us to have the lesson in his home, then he invited 2 friends over. Not the ideal setting for a lesson, but it worked. It's great to see the ward rallying around Tim. It's sad that it's taken this long, but better late than never! The 3rd visit we talked about chastity, and it wasn't awkward at all. Yay. I don't see why some people make it awkward. But we had a really good discussion on the importance of families and Tim liked what we shared. Saturday we drove down to Bedford to have Tim witness a baptism and then have his interview. He thought the baptism was pretty neat, and it made him kind of excited, but kind of nervous. He was really nervous for his interview. We went over the questions the night before, and he seemed fine. He was just worried over nothing though, because he passed with flying colors.

We read twice more with Peter. We're almost done with 1 Nephi now. He's starting to retain more information now. He's such a trooper because for the last few visits, we haven't been able to find an exchange, and his wife has been gone, so we sit out on the porch in the cold while he sits inside with the door open. He expressed interest in coming to church with us after he has hip surgery and recovers from that. That'll be the end of May. Maybe by then we'll be through 2 Nephi. :)

We met with Erica, a less active on Wednesday. She was baptized only 5-6 years ago, yet she's so lost. We decided to teach her the lessons all over again. She says she wants to change her life. When we met her last week, she said she had prayed just the night before and told God she wanted to get back to church. Then we showed up the next day. Not a coincidence I'm sure. So we started talking about Heavenly Father, and we realized how far back we have to go with her. She "knows" a lot of things, but she doesn't really believe them. She knows Christ lived and died, but she doesn't believe it applies to her. She hopes things are true, but she doesn't know, and she feels like there's no way for her. But there is so much hope! She shared an experience about feeling what it'll be like to live with Heavenly Father again, and she feels that she's just tormented and that she'll never have that. :( She wants it, she just doesn't think it's attainable. She shared that there's some things in her life she knows she needs to give up, but she doesn't know if she can or if she wants to. I shared with her one of my favorite quotes: "we can have eternal life if we want it, but only if there is nothing else that we want more." That got her thinking a little bit. We invited her to church Sunday, but she said she wasn't ready for that quite yet. Friday we put her on our stewardships and asked our district to pray for her. We were supposed to meet Saturday afternoon, but we had to reschedule because of the baptism. We texted her Friday night to reschedule for Saturday morning or sometime Sunday. She said Saturday morning would be fine, and then right after, she said "actually, I'll come to church with you if I can get a ride" Whoa! S. Charsley and I stared at each other in shock for a few seconds. I'm starting to believe S. Charsley when she jokingly said after seeing so many miracles here: "being a missionary is easy!" :) Sadly, Erica slept through her alarm both mornings. :( She was super bummed too. Hopefully we'll help her wake up next week.

We saw Sister Ashworth Friday morning. She has been a lifelong member, but she too has lost her faith and testimony. Last time we visited, we talked about prayer and we shared the experience of Aaron teaching the Lamanite king, and he prayed to know that there was a God. We invited Sister Ashworth to do the same. She seemed so hopeless (I'm sure her health challenges add to that feeling). This time, she seemed a bit happier. She said she'd prayed a few times, but no answer yet. She said she wasn't sure how she was expecting the answer to come, and commented that it probably wouldn't be the same as it was years ago because of all the nerve damage she's suffered. She's open to any answer, though she's totally lost as to how it will come. We watched the Restoration DVD with her, and she really liked it. She was really impressed that Joseph Smith was only 14 and he had that awesome experience. We assured her that if God cared about a 14 year old farm boy, He cares about her and will answer her prayers. I can see hope for her, though it may be a long time in coming.

As we planned our day for Easter, S. Charsley said she felt we should go see Sister Rogers. So, after church and lunch we drove to almost the middle of nowhere to see her. (I don't have too high hopes for missionary work on holidays because it's been my experience that most people - members and nonmembers - are with family and don't want to be bugged. Most holidays have been spent tracting and getting rejected. What a great holiday.) As we drove to the Rogers home, it appeared that no one was home, but we were wrong! We got to sit and visit with Sister Rogers and her husband who just needs to get baptized. We were supposed to see them on Wednesday, but that appointment fell through. We had planned to discuss Pres. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most". It was awesome, because Sister Rogers needed that on Sunday. Maybe she didn't need it so much Wednesday, but she needed it on Sunday. She needed us to come by that day too. I love inspiration! :)

On a cruelly funny note, last night we had Easter dinner with a few members in the ward. The drinks that were provided were Jones sodas. The caps always say fun things on them. So, I opened mine up and read it: "A trip by air is in your future." Rude. I've got plenty of time. It's so not fair how fast this month has gone by though!

Take care all. Keep writing!

sister smurf

"in the dark of the night, evil will find her..."

2011-04-18T11:39:00.000-06:00

PICTURE: We got kind of lost in the middle of nowhere coming home from an appointment. S. Charsley was scared of getting serial killed, and then we came upon this creepy shack.

Well, it's been a busy week! The Lord definitely has had his hand in this area! We came here with 4 investigators, and now we have 8. The elders left us an empty schedule, and now we're getting booked up! This area is awesome! The work is so totally different from the other side of town a year ago. I hated to leave Kokomo with only one transfer left, but I'm so glad I got to come here. The Lord knew I was apprehensive about opening up a new area, so He decided to bless me with lots of things to do here. Yay!

We met with Frank twice this week. First off though, who is Frank? We were tracting on Friday, our 2nd full day here. When he answered the door, all we got out was "hi, how are you today?" And then he went off and said his son is going to a boarding school in Provo and they met a lot of nice Mormons out there and he was really impressed with them and he was interested to know more. He said he was busy (Paul was home from Utah for the weekend), but asked if we could come back. Up to this point, we still hadn't said anything except our greeting. Our jaws were probably on the ground. We showed him our wide open calendar, and we set up a time for Monday. Sister Scoresby came with us and she was awesome. (She served in Rome and didn't get many teaching opportunities, so she was excited to "feel like a real missionary".) We taught the Restoration Monday. He volunteered that we needed a prophet today. He was surprised to hear that we do have a living prophet. He seemed to like that idea and showing him the pride cycle of dispensations and apostasy helped really well. Sister Scoresby bore a sweet testimony of how having a living prophet helps her as a parent, and Frank really connected with that. Frank said there have been a lot of little "coincidences" leading him to learn more about the LDS church. We gave him a BOM and committed him to read 1 Nephi 1-4. He told us he had a strong faith in God, but he wasn't so sure about Christ. As we read the introduction of the BOM with him, we asked what stood out to him. The line that he picked up on was the one stating that the BOM is evidence that Christ is the Savior of the world. Awesome. His other son, Samuel, came home during the lesson and he sat and listened. He didn't seem interested at all. We went back to teach Frank on Friday. He said he felt so good after we left last time. He said Samuel really enjoyed it too! Frank had read the assignment and he liked it. And he remembered some details, so he did more than just skim over it. We began teaching the PoS, focusing on the importance of Christ and His crucial role in bringing us salvation. It was another great lesson, and again, Sister Scoresby added a lot to the lesson. We assigned Frank more to read, and left him on a cliff hanger about what happens after we die. We invited him to church, and he said he was going to ask about our services. He says he likes going to church. He said he couldn't commit to yesterday, but he'd try in the future. We're meeting with him again tonight, and I'm so excited to teach the rest of the PoS and commit him to baptism. He's so neat! What a miracle!

Tuesday we met Sondra, an inherited investigator from the elders. Her husband has been inactive, but he's getting back into it now. Sondra has been prepared, and the elders did good work helping her receive an answer about being baptized. She'd only come to church once though, so we talked with her about coming to church and the benefits of it. She says she wants to, but she doesn't always have Sundays off. We invited her to pray and ask God for how she could come to church more regularly so she can be baptized. They had us over for dinner Saturday night. We taught the commandments of obedience, follow the prophet, and the WoW. Vincent is great. We were mostly addressing Sondra, and he volunteered that he needed to work on quitting coffee. He is in 2 Nephi, and he offered to read to Sondra to help her get more done. They're so awesome. She has a 14 year old daughter and they really want her to get involved in the church. Hopefully we can meet her and help her develop some friendships with the young women. I'm really grateful for the previous elders (Magleby & Cubit) for laying the foundation for Sondra's testimony. She knows what to expect from our visits, and she knows she is expected to do her part. It's hard when you come in to an area and the previous missionaries didn't set that standard. I'm grateful I followed good elders! We set Sondra's baptism date for May 14th! She's excited to be baptized. We still need to work on her testimony of THIS gospel, but it's coming along.

We read with Peter twice this week and got through 1 Nephi 9-13. There's a lot of great stuff in there! Despite the distractions of us having to sit out on the porch and him sitting inside the door (no female present), he seemed to understand the chapters. He had a hard time recalling everything when we came the 2nd time, but he did remember some. Hopefully he will continue to recover from his stroke and be able to function properly again.

We met with Robert Tuesday and Thursday. He's been coming to church with his grandma in the ward. He did some time and attended LDS church services for a few years. Pres. Snow (EQP) came along with his home teaching companion the first visit. S. Charsley and I were really nervous - it felt like everyone was staring at us and judging us. Needless to say, the beginning of the lesson (Restoration) was very rocky. But it got smoothed out, and the last part of the lesson was really great. The Spirit was really strong. Robert doesn't know a whole lot of our beliefs, but he likes what he's seen so far. We asked what he wanted out of our visits, and he said he was looking for a closer relationship with God. Perfect answer. He's such a nice guy. He is out of town this week though meeting his 18 year old daughter for the first time. We encouraged him to especially make time to read the BOM so he doesn't lose those good feelings.

Wednesday we went out to see Heather, who got baptized a year ago. We mostly got to know her and her story. She came across the BOM in jail when a friend (who was a member) lent her a copy. She read it, and she took Moroni's challenge and prayed about it. And she got an awesome answer. She heard an audible voice saying "my beloved daughter, it's true". Ooh, goosebumps! What's more awesome, is that she wasn't the only one who heard it. Her cell mate, her friend, and her cell mate all heard it. The other two ladies also joined the church. Man, any time I think about that I get chills. I love the power of the BOM!

We met with Tim finally on Wednesday. We met him briefly at church on Sunday. His girlfriend in Washington is a member, and the missionaries came over while he was out there, and she sent the missionaries here to him to continue the lessons. The elders had committed him to baptism on April 30th, along with Charles. We asked Tim if he was still planning on that, and he was kind of surprised. He said he did want to get baptized, and he knew there was a baptism on that day, but he didn't know it was his baptism! Alrighty, some type of miscommunication. S. Charsley and I decided (in our heads) that we'd drop the date and aim for an early May baptism. We taught him the commandments of obedience, follow the prophet, and the WoW. The only thing he struggles with is coffee, and he said he could give that up. He said he'd wean himself off of it. S. Charsley was going to accept that, but I felt like he needed to give it up now. So I was persistent and asked what would keep him from obeying now and receiving the blessings. I told him the Lord wanted him to go home that night and throw out all his coffee and supplies. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed. We met Friday and we followed up - and he did it! He threw it all out! He is so amazing! We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson, and he really got it! He had asked about repentance and how that's done. He thought there was a public confession required before baptism or something like that. And the thing is, he was still willing to be baptized! The lesson went really well. We then asked him what he was thinking about the April 30th baptism, whether it was too soon, not soon enough, or just right. And he said "just right"! Yay! He's so awesome! He's such a humble guy. He's already in 2 Nephi, and he feels bad about not being further. He's read most of the gospel principles book, and he makes comments in class.

We met with Sister Robinson Thursday morning. The previous sisters in December had been meeting with her and said she wanted to come back to church. We planned to teach her about revelation through the BOM. She's quite the talker, and the conversation was nowhere close to that. It got on temples, and we talked about that, and the blessings of the temples. I shared how important those blessings are and how much God wants to give us those blessings by talking about the early saints being commanded to build temples in their poverty, even after they lost their temples. Sister Robinson got a lesson of patience out of that, and she said she was wanting to ask us about that because she has no patience and she can't handle things anymore. Then came the prepared lesson of the importance of studying the scriptures and praying. It really hit home to her. She volunteered to say the closing prayer, and it was the sweetest prayer! She's got a strong testimony. She'd be such an asset to the ward!

We met with Charles again to teach the last few commandments: sabbath day, WoW, and chastity. It's great because he already lives them and has seen the blessings in his life from doing so. He is so excited for his baptism, and so is the ward. He's been attending for about 8 years now. He's working with the scouts and the YM. He is beyond ready for baptism. It's so neat to see the blessings of the gospel in his life. I was commenting during my last few days in Kokomo, that I'd never personally seen a baptism come from a part-member family. Well, that's about to change!

There's a lot of great things happening here! It's such a blessing! I'm super sad though because I just found out I won't be able to attend Angie and her girls' baptism in Kokomo because it's too far away. :( I'll get to call them though at least. But what a great blessing to have 3 baptisms here! I love being a missionary!

sister humpherys

boomerang child - well, sort of

2011-04-11T11:29:00.000-06:00

PICTURES:
the barbie room at the Children's Museum (2)
Funny signs (2)
me & S. charsley
me & S. mat

Man, I'm back down to only 60 minutes for email total. Hopefully I get everything down!

Before I write about the new area, I need to finish up Kokomo.

Last Friday we met with Jay and we'd planned to cover the Sabbath day, but he had some questions about the BOM. He took the "logical" path and started reading in Mormon. We explained the broad overview and helped him see the big picture. That seemed to help him out a bit. Sunday after conference we went and we read from A Marvelous Work and a Wonder about the Sabbath day. It laid everything out pretty darn clear about the Sabbath now being on Sunday and such. He didn't want to believe, so he picked at every little detail and didn't agree with our interpretation of scripture. He said he has an open mind to God showing him the truth, but he's already made up his mind about the Sabbath being on Saturday. So sad.

We met with Judy also on Friday and we brought up something about prophets again, and she said she had a real concern about our "allegiance" to the prophet. We explained how we each seek for a confirmation of what he teaches, and that it's not just blind obedience. That seemed to settle her a bit. She also brought up a concern about women not being equal with men. We explained that that isn't the case, but she was kind of stuck on women not being able to hold the Priesthood. We weren't able to completely resolve her concern. During conference though, I loved Elder Cook's talk and thought it was perfect for Judy. Hopefully she watched it!

Monday we met with Joe and Kristie. We were going to talk about the plan of salvation. S. Mat started out by asking where we were before we came here, and Joe didn't completely understand the question apparently, and he went off on a 15 minute-ish monologue about the big bang and evolution and all the scientific stuff that was not what we were looking for. Towards the end of the lesson, he realizes he answered the wrong question. The whole time though, the Spirit wasn't there. There wasn't a spirit of contention, just a lack of the Spirit. S. Mat and I were concerned and we decided to talk about it during comp. study on Tuesday morning. However, during our prayer that morning, Joe called and left a message. He called to apologize about the lesson, realizing he misunderstood. He said he'd thought a lot about it and received a confirmation that everything we're teaching him is true and he had just been kind of guarded because he was afraid of this being like any other church that he became disillusioned with. But he said he knows it's the truth, and he just needs to embrace it all. Later that day he gave us an awesome referral for his parents (different area though). He talked with them and they were so impressed with how pleased Joe and Kristie were in such a short time, and Joe showed them the pamphlets and they really liked them and said it made sense, and they told him they'd be super interested in having missionaries come by and talk with them and give them a BOM. Sweet! I talked to S. Mat last night though, and not so good news. :( They taught them the WoW and she said the lesson seemed to go well, but then later they said it wasn't expedient to pursue a baptism date or meet any more at this time. Super bummer! I have no idea what happened, and neither does S. Mat. She said it came totally out of the blue. I sure hope that they take this time to ponder and that they'll come back to it.

We met with John again. He asked about the do's and don'ts of our religion, and we mentioned some of those briefly. Then we tried to teach the next part of the Restoration lesson, but he brought up again about how Mormons are too solemn and unhappy and we praise Joseph Smith too much. I finally got sick of it and luckily I had the Spirit, because otherwise I would've just gone off on him. But I was sweetly bold (Sister Collins' phrase) with him and told him he needed to stop bringing up the same things that we've already answered and he needs to let us share what we have because we know what needs to be taught to provide a foundation for him. That seemed something new to him, and he agreed to stop going off on other things. During the last part of the lesson the Spirit was there. I don't know if he recognized it, but we sure did. He was really confused about what the BOM was because of some misinformation on the internet. So we told him to visit www.mormon.org and read the overviews. He called later and he was in a tizzy because he read about how Christ visited the Nephites. He said that if that were true, it contradicts the whole Bible. Talk about not understanding and blowing things out of proportion! I ended up talking to him for about 30 minutes trying to help him see how it doesn't contradict the Bible. He recognized somewhat of a doubting Thomas in himself and said that he needed to get rid of that and quit being defensive. At least he recognizes it. I suggested he read 3 Nephi 8-27 to understand what Christ did while here in America. Hopefully he did so.

We went for a last lesson with Angie Tuesday night before I headed off. We brought up that tea is not allowed, whether hot or cold. She wasn't aware of that, and she was so willing to give it up when she found out. I love Angie! We talked with her about conference. She hasn't gotten to watch it all yet, but she loved what she saw. She really liked Elder Perry's talk about the Sabbath day, which was perfect, because that's what our lesson was. We had a really good discussion about that. She said she had no idea that we weren't supposed to shop or work on Sunday, but she was excited to keep the Sabbath holy. She then told us about how she had been given the strength and wisdom of how to talk to Michael about behaviors that she doesn't like in the house, especially the girls. It was so neat. She wants so much for this to be a family endeavor. I have no doubt that Michael will eventually come around. I don't know when, but God won't leave Angie hanging.

Alright, now to the new stuff.

Well, I'm back in Bloomington! What a surprise! It's a different ward though. I was in the north and west part of town last year, and now I'm on the east and south part. So I kind of know my way around generally. Thank goodness for my GPS though. :) It's weird being back after having been gone for a year. I was able to see some old faces at church from the Highland ward. I'm follow up training S. Charsley (from S. Africa) who just came from Fishers with S. Latu. Opening the area isn't as hard as I thought it would be, though there are times I feel like my head will explode. I'm sure that's why S. Charsley is my companion - she doesn't get stressed. I'm sad that I'm so far away from missionary civilization, but it's a good area here. Last transfer was the first time since December that they had missionaries solely for this ward. They got things started a little for us, though they didn't leave us much information. They were kind enough to leave us 4 investigators, 2 of which have baptism dates for April 30th. That was nice of them. We met Bishop Francis our first night here, and he's so missionary minded. He gave us a list of good members to go see as less actives, part members, or active members who would be great for referrals. There's a lot of people here ready to do missionary work and ready to help us out. Yay!

We met Charles (elders' gator) briefly at the church Wednesday. We met with him Thursday and Sunday. He's been coming with his wife (member) for 8 years. He said that after their 1 year stay in Utah, he was ready to start doing what needed to be done, so he picked up the lessons again. He is so awesome! He's got such a strong testimony, and he's already a permanent fixture in the ward. We're teaching him the commandments that need to be taught before his baptism, and it's kind of hard because we know he knows it all. Last night, he really put our minds at ease. We had just finished teaching about tithing and fast offerings (which he was so proud because he just paid that day for the first time!) and he told us that he enjoyed us coming. He said he didn't want to knock the elders, but they didn't know how to teach him, since he already knew everything. But he told us that we've been able to fill in the little details that he wasn't 100% sure on. Oh, that made me feel so good! I was worried that he might feel like he's just appeasing us by listening and that he's just jumping through hoops. But he enjoys our visits. Yay! Charles talked about how he's become a totally different person, and people recognize it. Sister Jenness who came with us last night was so shocked to hear some things come out of his mouth because he has changed so much. Oh, Charles is awesome.

We tracted into Kortnie, a senior in high school who lives on her own now due to a rough home life. When we first talked to us, she seemed to be just kind of humoring us by listening, but she agreed to a return appointment. We went back Saturday and began to teach her about God. She doesn't really believe in Him anymore, though she used to go to church all the time. She feels she didn't get His help when she needed it, so she says she doesn't really believe anymore. We talked to her about the purpose of trials and how they shape us and how God won't remove the very things that will help us become what He knows we can become. She seemed pretty receptive. Hopefully we get to meet with her more often and make some more progress with her.

We also met with Peter (elders' gator). He just had a stroke 3 months ago. He wants us to just read the BOM with him right now until he can read on his own. We picked up where the elders had left off and read 1 Nephi 6-9 with him and explained. He didn't comprehend much at all from the reading, but he got a lot from when we explained it, and he said he understood a whole lot more than in the past. The elders had considered just reading with him as a service. I think it's exactly that, but more as well. He is learning and able to progress, but he will just progress differently and a lot slower than others. He's doing really well for having a stroke 3 months ago. So we'll continue to read with him, as long as he continues to learn. I feel this time will really mean a lot to him as we perform this service when others may pass him by because he will progress a lot slower.

the mission is not a place to be comfortable

2011-04-04T08:59:00.001-06:00

I'M MOVING AGAIN :( It really came as a surprise. All the other times I've been transferred, I knew it was coming. But this time it was totally out of the blue. It's pretty hard, being moved unexpectedly for my last transfer. What's more, is that I'll be opening a new area and follow-up training. Of course, Heavenly Father knew that I had become comfortable in all the other tasks of a missionary - talking to everyone, being excited no matter what, being bold, etc. But He knew that I was not okay with the idea of opening a new area. So, of course that's what I'm doing. I don't know where yet, or who my companion is, but it will be an adventure, that's for sure. I'm so sad to leave S. Mat, Kokomo, and the wonderful people here. But, it's part of the mission. I'm excited for new adventures yet to be had.

Tuesday we met with Jeff again and talked with him about prophets. We read with him from 2 Nephi about the need for the BOM and the fact that it would come forth to support the Bible. In the middle of us talking, he interrupted and said that everything just makes so much sense! He is so awesome! We gave him the BOM cds so that he can listen to them. S. Mat then extended the baptism commitment, and he said yes! We then started to invite him to church, but he backed us up and said that when he knew, he would "act expediently" Whoa! Talk about super awesome! We rejoiced in that and then invited him to church, and he said he knew that he was going to need to come to church, and he wants to. Man, he just gets better and better. He was going to listen to conference and then we were going to meet with him Sunday morning, but we went over there, and he opened the door with a mask on. He and his family have H1N1. Ugh. He said he wasn't able to get much done in the ways of listening to the BOM or watching conference. Oh I hope he gets better soon so we can continue to teach him.

We met with the Phersons Tuesday. Most of the time was spent trying to butt in between them arguing with each other. They are both strong willed and get defensive and argumentative. Not a good combination, especially when trying to teach the gospel. They explain things differently, and because they do so, they misunderstand each other and think they have different views when in actuality, they agree. As I was sitting there listening to them, I was thinking it'd be nice to be able to teach them individually. Apparently God thought so too - a few minutes later, John suggested we come over when she's not home. Then Sister Pherson agreed that that was a good idea. So we went back Wednesday to talk with John. He's got a good heart. He wants to save his marriage (because right now religion is driving a wedge between them - or better yet, they are driving the wedge of religion between themselves). He wants to understand his wife's beliefs so they can cooperate. He isn't looking to convert - he says he never wants to be a Mormon because they're too solemn and never smile. Despite this desire to understand, he's still kind of close minded. And he has a lot of questions that he wants answered before he has the foundational understanding to support those answers. We asked him to be patient with us and he said he would, but there is that air of impatience. He asked something about the BOM and we decided to go into that, and then he cut us off and said that was impossible and he couldn't believe that unless there was proof, so we should talk about something else. Hmm. If he could listen long enough to hear our message, without incorrect preconceived notions, he'd be a great member. He's such a loving guy. He just doesn't understand. A big thing he doesn't understand is how we worship. We know that we can worship God and Jesus without literally shouting praises to Them. We worship them as we learn of them and express gratitude for Their works. He sees all that we do/say as praising the church and Joseph Smith. We've tried to explain it to him, but he doesn't want to change his mind. It'll sure take some time with him. We met with Sister Pherson on Friday. She's got such a strong testimony. She's so sweet. The culture and language difference makes it hard for her to talk about religion with John. She easily gets defensive and then won't talk about it because it ends in an argument. Maybe we should teach them both patience. :) They're both really great people, and I really admire John for wanting to understand her and her beliefs. I know this gospel can help them - if they let it!

Wednesday we met with Angie. We had planned to have a DTR about coming to church. We thought there was an underlying concern that was keeping her from church because she is so willing to do anything else we ask. She told us that Emma was sick and didn't want to go. Mikela told her, "suck it up Emma, I want to go to church!" Oh we had a good laugh at that one! It seemed as if something was on Angie's mind though, so we waited and listened. She told us of some struggles she's having with her husband's actions and it makes it hard for her to remember to read the BOM. As we listened more, she shared that she didn't feel worthy because of her husband's actions (she felt bad putting her family in that situation). We were able to comfort her and let her know that God determines who is worthy, and the baptism interview questions that we went over last week prove to her that God knows she's worthy. That really soothed her. We then talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost and she said "well that changes everything!" Man, it was just what Angie needed. It was such a powerful lesson, so focused on what she needed. It was amazing that the things we had planned - church and the Holy Ghost - were what she needed. I was prompted to tell her that Heavenly Father wanted her to pray about being baptized on April 30th and Angie giggled. She said she just got so excited at that thought, and took that as her answer, though she said she would still pray about it. Yay! Oh, I love Angie so much! It was so hard to call her this morning and tell her that I'm leaving. She's definitely had a huge impact on my life, as well as her girls! We taught the girls Saturday morning before conference about following the prophet and obedience. We reviewed what a prophet is and does and did a little activity to show how important a prophet is. We then told them that Moses is dead, Noah is dead, Joseph Smith is dead, so what do we do? They got super sad, and then they remembered they could read their words in the scriptures. But they were still sad. We told them that we have a prophet alive today, and they got so excited! It was wonderful! We explained to them more about conference and we gave them conference bingo cards to use as they listened. They were so excited for conference! They asked when it was and Angie told them it was later in the day and they said they couldn't wait that long! Oh, I just love them! They are so adorable.

We met with Michael Wednesday and taught him about following the prophet and obedience. He had read up to 1 Nephi 8 so we tied that in with following the prophet. He liked the chapter, but he was kind of stoic about the lesson. I'm again not seeing much drive from him. :( He hasn't been to church in the last few weeks.

We had dinner with the Palads Wednesday night. They are awesome! They're from the Philippines, they just moved here from Logansport, and he was just baptized in August. They are so fun! Brother Palad made the first egg rolls that I've liked! The dinner conversation was so great. Oh I just love them. Their love for the gospel is so strong. And they love missionaries. What more could you want? :)

We met with Desiree that night. She moved out of the bad situation of living with her negative boyfriend. Yay! We taught her about the cleansing power of the Atonement and the need for faith in Christ. It was a really great lesson. Despite being stressed and busy, she still finds time to read some in the BOM. And she loves our visits. She gets a lot of strength out of them. Oh I just wish her boss would give her Sundays off so she could come to church!

We finally saw Stephanie again and we taught her about the Apostasy using the BOM. She had read the assignment of 1 Nephi 1-3 and she even applied it to her life, it was great! She's really sincere, and I know the gospel would totally be a benefit in her life. She'll get there, as long as she keeps reading and making time to meet with us.

We taught Deven Thursday night about the Atonement and the spirit world. His mom was there and she shared her belief of what happened after we die, and it was amazingly pretty accurate. There were some differences, but the main concept and idea was there. She shared her belief kind of like "this is what I believe and I know it's right" assuming that our belief was different. I think she was kind of surprised to hear that our doctrine is very similar. Deven's still awesome, to the point that he won a stare down with his less active dad and got him to say the closing prayer. Yay!

We met with Joe and Kristie Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we'll see them again tonight. They're awesome! He has so much knowledge. The spiritual conversion is coming. In his ramblings, he told us he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet. Kristie is just learning, but she likes what she sees and says it makes sense. Joe said he'd taken Moroni's challenge the first time he read the BOM and then that night he had a dream. He wasn't sure if it was an answer or not. He shared it with us, and when we assured him that we didn't think he was nuts, and it could very well be an answer, he took that as his answer. As we were getting ready to leave Thursday, we invited them to pray about being baptized. Joe said he already had an answer - yes. Great! So then we invited them to pray about a date. Again, he said he already knew when - May 1st! Kristie agreed as well! Wow! These people that we just barely met last week set their own baptism date! AWESOME!! They came to the first session of Saturday conference. We didn't get to talk to them too much, but their body language kind of worried us that maybe they didn't like it or something went wrong. During the session, Joe just looked kind of bored. Sister Lalonde told us she told him he needed to put his academics aside and listen for the Spirit. We thought maybe that may have offended him in some way. We met with them that night, and Joe said he loved it! He then shared that during the conference, he felt that the Spirit was there, and he didn't really feel that in other churches. He said it was the first time he went to a church and felt like he gained something rather than lost something. He then told us that he had a conversation with the Spirit. The Holy Ghost asked if he was happy, and if he had any doubts. Joe responded that he was happy and he didn't have doubts. He took that as an answer! They came to both sessions on Sunday. Joe said his favorite part was when the prophet spoke. Kristie said she felt peace when he spoke, and that's something she's been looking for for 40 years. They both said they feel at home at our church. Joe said he can't wait for this month to be over so that they can be baptized. We talked to them about obedience and following the prophet and how this baptism is just the beginning. He said that's what they've been looking for - a baptism that acts as a springboard, not the end result. Wow. They are so awesome!

We met with Mike Friday. We discussed 1 Nephi 8 - or tried to. He told us he'd read, but he really didn't. I will forever remember that as we talked about the importance of the rod of iron in bringing us to God, Mike interjected and asked how big the rod was. Really?! Goodness. He just enjoys our company, he is not looking to know if this is true. He said he feels God gave him his answer, and that it was false. I testified that this Church is true, and the only way to know is to read the BOM and to pray about it. I then shared that God wouldn't give 2 people different answers. Mike said he agreed, and that's why he feels that we're following the devil, not God. Well then. We dropped him.

Well, I still need to write about Jamie and Judy, but I am out of time because we're going to the Children's Museum today. I'll write about them next week.

Love you all!
sister humpherys

no longer a ranch purist

2011-03-28T09:48:00.001-06:00

PICTURES:
one word - hoosier
this cat followed us tracting for an hour
the Williams family!
me & S. Lamb
awesome signs in Anderson at a member's tire shop

This mission thing is making me a little less picky. I now like raspberry vinaigrette and poppy seed dressing on my salad. :) Don't worry though, there's still things I don't like.

Only 2 at church this Sunday. :( I don't know what's up with our investigators. Our less actives are even trying to slip out from under us too. It's a little disheartening when we plan for 10 gators and we only get 2. Such is the nature of the work I suppose.

Tuesday we met Sister Pherson and her husband John. She is from the Philippines (was baptized in 1995 by an Elder Humpherys), and she's been less active because of her husband. She has a very strong testimony, but he is pretty against the church. She's been going with him to his church (she doesn't drive). She met Sister Joray at Kroger a few days earlier, and she said she really wanted to come back to church. She told Sister Joray that she wanted us to come over and talk to her husband. And so we did. Sister Pherson is so sweet! She told us of how she used to have a welcome party at her home for any greenie straight from the MTC. She is going to be such an asset to this ward! Her husband John is nice, and said we're welcome in his home any time. However, he's misinformed on some things about our church and he's pretty close minded. :( He says he just doesn't understand and wants it explained, but then he goes off and more wants a debate. Gotta give him some credit though because he brought his wife to church yesterday for the first 2 hours. He's got a hard shell, but if he'd take the time to listen, he'd be able to understand (and realize some of what he "knows" is not accurate) and he'd be a great member. After meeting with them Tuesday, S. Mat and I both said that we could see the goodness in him and his potential. We just have to tap in to that. His conversion probably won't happen before I finish my mission because he's got a long way to go, but we'll at least try to start and see what happens.

We stopped by Angie's briefly Tuesday night. She told us that she had gotten up for church but then had fallen back asleep and she was so upset with herself. She didn't make it again this week, but we haven't seen her yet to find out why. We're really stumped as to why she doesn't make it. She does everything else we ask of her, and she wants to do it. She has a testimony, and she's going to be baptized. Something is keeping her from church otherwise she would be there. Hopefully we can figure out what it is and resolve that concern this week. Angie has not smoked since March 17th!!! SWEET! It's so exciting to see her free from that addiction and be able to be even more of a mom to her girls. When we stopped by Thursday briefly, we noticed some tea on the table though - so we'll have to review the WoW with her this week. We emphasized the coffee and cigarettes, so she probably didn't pick up on the tea. Wednesday we had a lesson on baptism with her and we asked her again what her thoughts were, and she basically shared her testimony of how she understood so much more about the gospel and about baptism now than when she was first baptized. She couldn't find all the words, but we could feel her heart. So awesome! She's praying about a baptism date for late April.

Lindsey dropped us. :( When we stopped by last Sunday afternoon, she peeked through the blinds and then didn't answer the door. When we called to confirm our appointment for Wednesday, she said she was busy. When we asked if we could reschedule, she said she would call us. :( :( Somehow, she got anti-ed. I don't know what more we could've done. We met her Wednesday, taught her Thursday and Friday, and by Sunday she slipped through our fingers. It's so sad. She was so ready for this. But something came and snatched that feeling away from her. It's so sad to lose her. But, obviously the Lord has other plans for her. I just hope she'll recognize her chance when it comes around again.

Wednesday we met with Michael. He's heard all the main lessons (Restoration, Plan of Salvation, Gospel of Jesus Christ), but he doesn't have a testimony. (P.S. it bothers me when missionaries plow ahead and teach the lessons boom-boom-boom rather than helping people develop a testimony. But that's a ranting for another day. hehe) So we decided to review the Restoration lesson with him. We used the apostasy cups to teach him about prophets/apostles, and help him see why there's so many churches. He said it really helped him to understand and it gave him a lot of things to think about. Yay. We're making some progress.

We met with Jamie 3 times this week. He appreciates us coming over. He's still really hung up on the Sabbath being on Saturday though. He brings it up (and the exact same points) each lesson. He had pulled out his BOM and started reading the Intro and the witnesses before our appointment on Wednesday. We talked about that a bit and about the importance of seeking a witness from God. And we stressed the importance of reading the BOM and praying to be able to know the truth. I wasn't there for when he was taught about the apostasy and Joseph Smith (I was on exchanges), but S. Mat said it went well. Sunday we went to teach him about prophets. He agreed on the need for prophets and he said that since Matt. 7 says to "beware of false prophets" there must be some true ones. He didn't really hop on board though with Pres. Monson, mainly because, you guessed it, the Sabbath day. Ugh. If he could just get over that issue, I don't think he'd have much hindrance. It's so hard with him. There's that spark in him that we have to tap in to just right. If we don't get it just right, it won't work. It takes a lot of thought to plan for his lessons, and even then we don't do such a good job at implementing it exactly. I really want him to see the truth. He was a convert to the 7th Day Adventist church, and he's so staunch in the belief of the Sabbath. If he could convert to the true church, imagine how strong he'd be! I hope we can help him receive answers to his prayers.

Desiree canceled on us last minute. But she's moving out, so that's a good thing! Because of her canceling, we were able to make it down to see Joe, a referral from HQ that lives down in Tipton (30 minutes away). It's been a while since we last tried to see him - we were going to see him the day our car got hit, but then that didn't happen. His answering machine let us know that he is a reverend, so we weren't quite sure what to expect, especially since he ordered a Bible. We weren't sure if he wanted to see if our Bible was the same or if he really wanted a "Mormon Bible" (aka BOM), so we brought both along with us as we traveled down south with Sister Lalonde. He's kind of a quirky guy, but he and his wife are really nice. He is super smart, and he loves to study religion. He is an ordained minister, but doesn't have a church or anything. He read the BOM first at the library, and was fascinated. He's read so much - D&C, PGP, a history of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and I think a bunch of other church publicated (yes, that's a word now) things. He said over the years he kept being drawn back to the BOM for some reason, so he's read it a few times. He's never been to church though. And though he's got all the academic/historical knowledge, he lacks a full understanding of the implications, and he lacks a spiritual witness. This was shown as I asked him what has prevented him from being baptized in our church. He said he didn't know - he'd never thought about being baptized, because he'd been baptized in the Pentecostal church. So, we've got some work to do in building testimony. He'd be a fun asset to the ward. I hope it all goes well with him and Christy coming to know the truth. The hard thing is that they live 30 minutes out of town and don't have a car, and we only have 2 active members down there. Hmm. That'll be a challenge.

We met with Judy twice this week. I am impressed by her. She's in constant pain from migraines and has chest pains also and hadn't slept at all. But she copes with it and moves on. And she let us in to talk. We were going to teach her the spirit world through the degrees of glory. S. Mat started in but I felt restrained for some reason. A few thoughts came to my mind of what I could share, but I did not feel like any of them were right. So I just didn't say anything. I was kind of confused, and I'm sure S. Mat was waiting for me to come in. But instead, Judy asked some questions about the do's and don'ts of our religion. So we were able to share some of that with her and help her understand. Yesterday we went back and we did teach the plan of salvation and it went well. It's interesting that she believes pretty much the same thing we do about the spirit world - yet I know that didn't come from any church. She's gaining knowledge and understanding of our beliefs, but she's not gaining a testimony - she's not looking for one. She just wants to understand us.

We had dinner with the Dwigans' Thursday night. We showed up at 6pm and there was a roofing salesman there. He had his stuff all sprawled out in the living room, so we sat at the dinner table while he finished up. He came at 4:20 and didn't leave until 6:40. Brother Dwigans was pretty upset after he left; Sister Dwigans had let him in because she wanted the free $25 Walmart gift card. :) God sure works in mysterious ways though. Before the salesman finished up, he asked us a lot of questions about the church. We were able to clear up that the prophet is just a prophet (not to take away from Christ), those who practice polygamy are excommunicated, and something else he asked. He then asked how the prophet disseminated new revelations to the church (he struggled to find the word revelation, and he said epiphany, but he knew that wasn't right because an epiphany comes from man not from God). He threw out a random guess that maybe the prophet would announce every 6 months or something. So then we explained about general conference. Before all this, I made a joke about coming to his house for dinner since he had disrupted our dinner plans. Then he said he lives on the south side of Indy. Bummer. After he asked these questions, we offered to send the missionaries to his door, but he said he liked this informal setting better where it didn't seem like it was pushed down his throat. We did give him a card for our website, as well as the link for general conference. Hopefully he'll check it out. But, I'll probably never know.

We saw Deven again that night. He's such a bright kid. If it weren't for his less active father and his stepmom who's against the church, I think we could teach him faster and he'd probably be baptized already. But we have to respect the family situation. His dad is supportive but provides no push. His stepmom wakes him up for church. I'm impressed with her, given her feelings towards the church. Deven is still looking to know for himself that the BOM and the church are true. I personally feel that he already knows it. He just needs to know that he knows it.

Friday we went tracting in the cold. We came across a court off of the street were were knocking, and decided to do it real quick. Good thing we did. We met Lynette and she let us in. When we asked if she'd heard about our church, she said she'd heard a lot, and her voice had a good tone to it. In the fall she took a month long trip out west and spent some time in Utah. She said she doesn't know enough about our beliefs, but the things she has heard she can't understand because it's so different from what she was raised with. She had some questions that we answered, and somehow we got on the BOM, and she was really interested in that. We handed her a copy and she was listening and looking through it. Something came into her heart though and snatched out that good feeling because after we talked about Christ coming to the Americas, she handed the BOM back and her demeanor changed. So sad! It reminded me of the parable in Matt 13 about the soils - the one who receives the word with joy initially, and then it gets snatched up because of the cares of the world or whatever it is. She did say it was all interesting and wanted to know more, but we knew she wasn't quite ready for the discussions. We could tell that she wants to know more before discussing it. So we gave her a website card and told her she could learn the basics on there. Hopefully that will give her the preparation she feels she needs to be able to meet with us.

We met with Mike again and discussed 1 Nephi 4-6. We had told him to look for principles that he could apply in his life. He said he didn't find any. Man, there's so much about faith and obedience in those chapters! He really doesn't know how to read the scriptures for personal application. If it's not directly teaching doctrine or praising Jesus, he doesn't get anything out of it. We spent the time talking about the things we pulled out of it in hopes of teaching him how he can get more out of his reading. Hopefully it helps. But he hasn't been to church the last 2 weeks, so if that continues, we won't be able to meet with him anymore.

Friday night we drove over to Anderson to do our exchange. I went there with S. Lamb and S. Vanderhooft came to Kokomo. S. Lamb is awesome! She's so fun. She's only been out 1.5 transfers but she's powerful. Her only evident downfall is that she doesn't really realize how powerful she is. I know that when she gets put with a really strong/bold senior companion, she's just going to explode with awesomeness. We had some good lessons with less actives and recent converts. We ended up on 2 of the same streets I was on when I was there on exchanges with S. Mat back in June, so we tried to see some potentials that I talked to (miraculously I remembered their names and houses), but none of them were home. Being with S. Lamb was great and I had fun, and it also made me appreciate S. Mat even a little more. I really missed her. In Kokomo, they had five member present lessons Saturday! Wahoo! S. Mat had a lot of realizations because of the exchange. We had a really good talk about it when I got back, and it was so neat. We both realized that there's more of each other to love, and we realized more just how much we love each other. We've had some rough patches, but that's led us to where we are now - best friends for life. What more fun could be had than to share the gospel 24/7 with your best friend? I love her!

Transfers are next week. We've been thinking that S. Mat will leave. At the end of last transfer, Bishop predicted that as well. But now his prediction is different. The reason that's worrisome, is that in the last like 20 transfers, he's only been wrong once and only partially right once (predicted one would leave but they both did). His new thought is that we're getting double transferred. :( :( If I get moved, I feel that it means I'll open a new area. Not something I really want to do, but if that's what God wants, I'll do it. But we'll have to wait until next week to see what happens.

Thanks for all your love and support!

sister smurf

one last thought

2011-03-21T09:58:00.000-06:00

I just remembered something I was going to write.
Yesterday while tracting, we came across a couple doing yard work. We introduced ourselves, and the husband (who seemed to be of middle eastern or Indian descent) decided to be quite rude to us. He rather harshly told us they didn't want to hear anything from us because we have been deceived and don't believe in the right Jesus. He told us that he hoped some day our eyes would be opened and that we would come to believe in the Jesus who died for our sins. We tried to politely share with him that we do believe in that Jesus, but he wouldn't have any of it. It was so hurtful. We moved on. My first instinct was to be so angry with that man. I hate when people think they know what we believe and won't let us talk to clear up misinformation. I hate when people condemn us and tell us that we're wrong. These were my thoughts and feelings in that moment. However, a very strong impression then came to my mind that it is my responsibility to love that man rather than be angry with him. My thoughts turned to the Savior and how He was treated, and how He responded with the utmost love. I prayed for that man, but more importantly I prayed that I would be able to love him. I shed a few tears. I'm so sad for him - my brother. I'm so sorry for my imperfections and my quickness to anger rather than love. I don't know how Christ did it for 33 years. And how He still does it today. I am so grateful for my Savior who paid not just for those who do not know Him, but for my imperfections and my lack of ability to be charitable.

i hate bugs

2011-03-21T09:31:00.001-06:00

We're infested with roly poly bugs and a few spiders. Yuck. S. Mat is your typical girl who hates bugs, so it's up to me to kill them. It hasn't been too bad until this week when we found 6 places with webs and eggs everywhere. EWWWW!! We've cleaned out 2, which leaves 4 for today. I HATE BUGS!

We were pretty disappointed at church yesterday. We were expecting a large number of investigators and less actives, but only Deven and Sister Boonstra came. :( We don't know what happened. People said they were coming. Even the ones who usually come weren't there. It was really sad.

We taught Ruth twice this week. She's read up through 1 Nephi 8 now! She really enjoys it, even though she sometimes has to read and re-read it. We've begun teaching her the Plan of Salvation, and she is accepting it. She keeps telling us that she's gone to a lot of churches, and none seem to make sense like this one does. Brother Lamons said she's really wanting to get baptized, and she agreed. She hasn't come to church yet, so we talked about how establishing that habit of coming to church is a requirement for baptism. She said she's getting less shy as time goes on, and she sees herself coming soon. Brother Lamons' health has been an excuse so far, but it's just that - an excuse. He goes other places, there's no reason he can't come to church. I don't quite understand it though because he has a strong testimony and says he loves church. Friday we taught her the Atonement. It was kind of a disjointed lesson because S. Mat and I weren't completely on the same page, but I felt it was a breakthrough lesson for me. It was the first time that I was able to break away from merely teaching the facts of the Atonement and actually teach about how we can access the Atonement, and what it does for us. As Bro. Phipps from the MTC pointed out, so often we teach the Plan of Salvation merely as a story, rather than teaching it as Their Plan of Salvation. This lesson I think was the first time that I've been able to reach that ideal (or at least come close).

We finally got in to see Melody on Tuesday. It's been about 3 weeks since we've been able to meet with her. We used to have regular appointments at least once a week, sometimes twice a week, but things are crazy in her life, and she keeps canceling on us. So we were grateful we could finally sit down with her. We shared Elder Wirthlin's talk with her "Come What May, and Love It". It was a good lesson for her, as many negative things keep happening to her. Speaking of, while we were there, her daughter and her boyfriend got in a fight and got taken to jail. Good news: Melody was left alone at the house to enjoy some peace and quiet. :) Melody told us she fully believed that she could've quit smoking by now if her daughter hadn't have been living with her. Maybe some progress will start to happen.

We met with Desiree again. She had asked if we had anything about angels. We were planning on teaching about the Atonement and after death, so we tied in angels to that. She works at a nursing home, and she shared an experience with us about a patient who was dying and heard the angels singing and inviting her on. We talked about the purposes that beings from beyond the veil communicate with us, and shared some experiences of the Savior in Gethsemane, Joseph Smith, and Wilford Woodruff. Desiree is really awesome. Our visits are such a boost to her, and a distraction from the negative influences of her boyfriend and work. I wish she didn't live 30 minutes away so that we could see her more often. But, it is what it is.

We went to see Jamie Wednesday morning. We couldn't find anyone to come with us, so we had to stand outside for our visit. He was very nice to stand with us for 45 minutes in weather that wasn't the ideal. Good thing it wasn't super cold though. S. Mat and I had different ideas for what we wanted to have happen. She wanted to let him do most of the talking and leading, whereas I wanted to take the reins and not let him go off on a wild goose chase. It threw us off guard having to dive right in to the lesson on the porch. So I started in with the Plan of Salvation as we had decided. I wasn't really liking how the lesson was going, but I wasn't sure how to change tracks. S. Mat mostly just stood there, until we brought up the need for additional scripture. She then jumped in, and from that point, it was a good lesson. I get dragged in to the trap often of trying to show and prove things (the curse of a logical brain). But we pulled it back to reading and praying about the BOM, and he offered that he would need to read the BOM and compare it to the Bible. Realizing that he didn't accept our view of the pre-earth life, we decided to focus the next lesson on the BOM and show him the need to gain a testimony of that first, before going in to all the little details that take you on a wild goose chase if you start with them. So yesterday we took Sister Lalonde with us and we got to go inside his house. He was more in the attitude of listening this time, until towards the end when Sister Lalonde fell into the trap of following him on the wild goose chase and trying to prove to him the answer to his questions. But we did get to talk about the Holy Ghost and asking for guidance. We ended off with him asking what it was in the BOM that would be of worth for him to read that's not in the Bible. We talked about the BOM clarifying/enriching the Bible, and before we could give specific examples, he went off on a tangent, and we ran out of time. But we'll pick up next time with helping him to see the value of what's contained in the BOM. If we do this right, I think he'll be sincere enough to ask and find out for himself. But it's so easy to do it wrong lose him. I hope we can do it right! His friend Kim walked in during the lesson. She'd just been kicked out of her apartment, so she was in a distressed state. But she sat in on the rest of the lesson and participated. She's recently turned her life around from drugs and such. Maybe we can get her to investigate as well.

We met with Angie Wednesday to kick of the stop smoking program with her. We were super excited! And she was too, but she was also nervous. She's tried a number of times to quit, and she hasn't been successful. And she hates not being successful, because she's good at everything else she does. We were able to testify to her that the Lord had his hand in the program, and that she would be able to quit if she followed exactly. She hopped on board. We saw her each day til Saturday, and she'd been completely smoke free! When we went over Thursday night to see her, we could tell a huge difference! S. Mat and I talked about it after we left, and she made the comment that we're giving herself back to her. We went over Friday for a lesson, and again, we could see a huge difference. What a neat thing to be able to witness! The lesson we shared was on repentance, and I remembered Elder Andersen's talk from 2009 "Repent...That I May Heal You". I figured it would be a great talk to read with her because it would kill two birds with one stone. #1 - it teaches repentance and shows the healing aspect of it so well, and I knew Angie would love it. #2 - she is so in awe about modern prophets, and loves the idea and believes it, but she said she still has a hard time wrapping her mind around it. Reading the words of a modern apostle would help in that regard, and also get her pumped up for general conference! The lesson was AMAZING! Angie was so touched, and so excited to read over and mark up her copy over and over again. She just thirsts after righteousness. She is so golden! She brought up her concern again with her husband not believing, and we reassured her that her example and her kids' examples will have an effect on him. That put her at ease again. She then told us that someone told her mom to stay away from our church, so her mom was concerned. Angie told her that she knows what she's felt, and it's her decision, and she feels right about it. Go Angie! I'm so grateful that she's received such a powerful witness of the truth! Saturday we taught the girls about the Atonement and what happens after death. Angie hadn't heard the 3 degrees of glory yet, so that part was for her too. Emma, Samara (cousin), and Angie all had really good questions about the spirit world and the 3 degrees of glory. We could tell that Emma's and Angie's questions centered on Michael and what would happen to him because of his disbelief. We were able to reassure them that all was not lost. It really brought them a lot of comfort. I love this gospel! They were supposed to come to church yesterday, but for some reason they didn't show. We tried stopping by afterwards and called them, but we haven't heard from them yet. :( I hope everything is okay.

We had a great lesson with Sister Eshelman about receiving revelation through the BOM. She's really opened up and changed a lot since we first met. The first time we met, she was kind of just polite, and she wasn't ready to come to church. But now, she welcomes us in and is glad to see us. She told us she forgot to set her clock forward last week and she'd be there this week. But something happened. :( She's showing a willingness to come now, and she brings it up. Progress! She's had a lot of good job interviews after coming to church that first time. The Lord is fulfilling the promise He spoke through us. But, He can't deliver, unless she keeps coming.

We taught Michael this week about the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. We emphasized the necessity of the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, to try to help him see the need for baptism and confirmation in this church. He's pretty involved when we teach about common Christian beliefs, but he's pretty stoic when we talk about things unique to our church. He has no testimony of this gospel. He's getting in to the BOM - we read 1 Nephi 5 with him Saturday. But he hasn't been to church the last 3 Sundays. He's falling back into his habits of just coasting and letting things happen to him rather than seeking his conversion. Hmm. Not sure what to do with him.

Wednesday while tracting we found Lindsey. She's 19 and awesome. She's really in tune spiritually. One of the first things she said was that she'd love to come to church if she had a ride. We went back Thursday to teach her and had a good lesson getting to know her and her background and what she's looking for in a church. We went back Friday to teach her about Joseph Smith and the first vision and to answer her question of why there's so many churches. We're really impressed with Lindsey and how prepared she is for this gospel. We set up a ride for her to church, but for some reason, Lindsey was a no show. They knocked and called, and no answer. :( We stopped by later in the afternoon and someone peeked through the window and then ignored us. Unfortunately, we think it was Lindsey. :( I don't know what got to her. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with her Wednesday and see what's up.

We met with Mike again. He hadn't read his assignment, so we showed our disappointment, and pointed out that reading the BOM are paramount in gaining a testimony, and that if he wasn't willing to do that, we have more important ways to spend our time. We finally got out of him a reason for meeting with us and coming to church. We've asked a few times why he comes because he doesn't show much if any interest in finding out if this church is true. He told us he doesn't have many friends, so Friday afternoon and Sunday are times that he can have some fellowship. We brought up again his conduct at church since the EQP had mentioned some hostility. We explained that church is a place of worship and refuge, where we don't appreciate having to defend our beliefs. Mike said he wasn't aware of that, and he sees now how his conduct was out of line. He asked if we wanted him to not come anymore. We told him we loved him and want him to come because church is a great place to feel the Spirit, but that the attitude of contention is what is not welcome. We'll see what happens. He didn't come yesterday. Hmm. Maybe he was too wrapped up in basketball. That seems to be his main priority.

Saturday we went out with Sister Myers to see Jeff. He told us that Becky had just left to get some food, but she was wanting us to go over with her what we went over with him last time. He said that he talked to her about it and read the passages in the BOM that we left him with her. That's good news! We decided to go ahead and teach Jeff about Joseph Smith since Becky had just barely left and we didn't know if she'd be back in time. We taught him about the confusion of Joseph Smith and the First Vision, and how the BOM is proof that it happened. Jeff was really receptive, and really enjoyed it. He really appreciates our emphasis on finding out for himself rather than pushing it down his throat. He said that's what initially caught his attention. We invited him to begin reading to find out that the BOM is true. He asked us if there was a BOM on CD because he has the Bible on CD that he listens to as he follows along to help him understand better. We told him we'd let him know how he could obtain a copy. In the meantime, we borrowed Sister Lalonde's set for him to use. He then told us that he asked his pastor (non-denominational church) what he knew about the BOM. His pastor said that was a good question and he would talk about it on Sunday. Ahh. Red flag! However, Jeff has good faith that his pastor encourages them to learn about other religions and to seek out truth on their own and wouldn't be biased in any way or present any misinformation. I sure hope he's right! We asked when we could come back and teach more, and he said "oh you're welcome anytime...how about tomorrow?" We took him up on that. It would be perfect to be able to talk to him about what his pastor said. However, he was a no show. :( I sure hope he just forgot or something came up rather than him being dissuaded by the pastor. I hope I hope I hope!

Since our car is in the shop, we have Sister Collins' car. We had the assistants' truck for a day, but then they needed it to haul furniture around in. At any rate, not using our car means we don't have mileage restrictions! We decided to take advantage of that and go less active hunting in Russiaville Saturday night. We made a list of the 9 families who live out there and put them in order of the most logical route. We had a lot of success! We only made it to 4 houses, and we had success at 3 of them!! We met Sister Hawkins and had a brief lesson with her. She was baptized a few years ago, but never really had a testimony. We set up an appointment with the Lamott family to go teach their 10 year old son who wants to be baptized. Then after almost giving up on trying to find Sister Pasquale's house, we stumbled upon it. She is so awesome! She's been less active for 8 years. She admitted she's just lazy. But she hates that she's on the less active list. She decided she'd come to church yesterday, and she invited us for dinner too. We had so much fun with her. The ward really needs her personality. I really think she needs S. Mat to bring her back. Sadly, some of her health problems reared up again, and she wasn't able to make it to church. She kept trying, but ultimately, she didn't feel well enough. She then had to cancel dinner as well. We were so bummed! She's going to the doctor today, so hopefully they figure something out. I hope this chance to bring her back doesn't slip out of our hands! We only have Sister Collins' car a few more days!

End of novel. :) Hope you all enjoyed! And I hope this motivated you to write me a letter. :) Love you all.

sister humpherys

I'm still here - send me letters! :)

2011-03-14T09:20:00.001-06:00

Well, it's slowly warming up, but I keep hearing that we usually get a snowstorm in March, so I'm not packing up my winter boots just yet. It's been a good week this go around.

We met with Judy last Monday. We talked with her about the spirit world. She told us of a dream/vision she had of walking her grandpa up to the gates and his family reached out to him. He looked at her and said he wasn't afraid to go anymore, and he walked through the gates. The dream/vision ended, and she looked to her husband and said that she knew grandpa died. Sure enough, he had. But she was at peace because she had seen the peaceful and restful state he was entering. Pretty neat. Judy is a strong woman. She has almost constant migraines and other health problems, yet she still allows us to visit her. Except for today. She had to cancel our appointment for today because the pain was just too bad. She's such a trooper though.

Angie continues to do well! We met Wednesday to talk about faith and the Word of Wisdom. We had a really good conversation about faith, and then by means of the Spirit, the conversation turned to forgiveness as I shared the experience of Corie Ten Boom and how forgiveness was an act of faith. Angie told us that forgiveness was something that she struggled with and asked for some help. We shared with her the parable in Matthew 18 about the servant who was released of a huge debt and then demanded payment from his own debtor for a much smaller debt. As we talked, I was reminded of something I learned from The Peacegiver and something from Boyd K. Packer's book Teach Ye Diligently. Number 1: us refusing to forgive someone is in essence saying "Christ's Atonement wasn't enough for that one. I demand more payment." How ridiculous is that?! Number 2: we often feel entitled to being treated right, but who are we to expect what the Son of God Himself was not given? Both those thoughts really put things into perspective. Forgiveness is still hard, but when we keep those things in mind, it's a little easier. Angie really appreciated our conversation, and said it helped her a lot. Needless to say though, we didn't get to the Word of Wisdom. So, we set up an appointment for Thursday. We went back and continued on from our faith lesson to teach the Word of Wisdom. The Spirit is pretty amazing. We knew that she drank coffee, but we didn't know she smoked. As we read the don'ts of the WoW, her eyebrows perked up. We asked her about it, and she shared with us that just yesterday she had been thinking about smoking and praying that God would help her to quit. Talk about truly being prepared! It was neat to see that God wanted us to teach the WoW on Thursday instead of Wednesday so that she could more easily recognize it as an answer to her prayers. We told her about the stop smoking program (7 days) and invited her to do it. We're going to start it Wednesday and she's excited! We had a lesson with Emma and Mikela on Saturday. We brought Sister Isaac and her 2 girls, McKenzie and Melainey who are the same ages. They are such the perfect fellowshippers! We heard from both Sister Isaac and Angie that all 4 girls were excited for the meeting Friday and all day Saturday and that's all they could think about. :) We played a game in which the girls had to "find happiness" after we had hidden 4 things that represent different kinds of happiness. We used the game to teach about the purpose of life and the pre-mortal life. Angie had to work Sunday, so we arranged for the girls to come with the Isaac's, but at the last minute, they chickened out and decided they didn't want to come without Angie. Angie apologized and said that the 3 of them would be there for sure next week.

We taught Michael this week about repentance, the Word of Wisdom, and baptism. He wants to quit smoking, and we may have to convince him a little more that he wants to give up his coffee. As we asked him more questions, we came to find out that though he said last week that he believed everything we taught, he doesn't know if Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet, and he doesn't understand why we want him to be baptized in our church since he's already been baptized. So there's more work for us to do in helping him to gain a testimony of this restored gospel.

We went to the middle of nowhere with Sister Lalonde again to visit Desiree. She is doing well in terms of reading and praying. We committed her to read 1 Nephi 1-3, and she said she read through chapter 15. Yay! She's got a lot of stress with the guy she lives with and at work, but she says reading the BOM and studying relaxes her. We talked with her about the purpose of life and the reason for trials. She's really warming up to us and Sister Lalonde. She's such a good person and she wants what's right. She's been realizing lately that where she's at is not what God wants for her and she's trying to do something about it. Bless her for recognizing that God has something better for her!

We finally got in to see Brad, a referral from the Peru elders that we got about a month ago. He's 25 and struggling with a recent break up that involves a daughter. It's really hard on him. He's a really neat guy and he opened right up to us about a lot of his thoughts and feelings. He admits he's confused about religion and that he's searching. He told us he was tempted to blow off the appointment and just not answer the door. But he was on the computer and randomly an ad popped up for www.mormon.org and he took that as a sign that he was supposed to meet with us. Yay! He says he's pretty stubborn and would need to humble himself in order to "confine" himself to a religion, but I really think he's more humble than he thinks. He recognizes that God has a plan and that He's trying to lead him. I'm really excited to get to work with him. We set up two appointments with him this week. The elders said he was awesome, and I can feel it too.

We got to meet with Deven again finally. He's still coming to church and doing well. He doesn't feel like he's really getting an answer about the Church being true or not though. I think that he knows it's true, he just doesn't know that he knows. And for an 11 year old, that's a hard thing to realize. We had a fun lesson with him about being cleansed through Jesus Christ and having faith in Him. Deven's such a bright kid and so willing to learn. I wonder if he's that interested in learning at school. :)

Mike. Finally he kept a commitment and read 1 Nephi 1-3. He said he didn't get much out of it though. I don't really know what he's looking for. We got talking about proof again, and he mentioned all the proof that's available for the Bible. Again, we brought up receiving a witness from God, and how given enough time, I'm sure there will be proof that becomes available. He refuted us again and said "you can't prove it to me". He was kind of taken aback when we told him that we weren't trying to prove it to him because we can't, and that's not what we're there for. He can't grasp the idea of learning by faith and praying to know something is true. It's so outside of/foreign to him. We did discuss about the examples of Lehi and Nephi in receiving personal confirmations of the truth, and the bad example of Laman and Lemuel not doing so and even rejecting an angel. I still don't know what Mike's motivation is. Yesterday the EQP brought up in ward council that Mike was pretty antagonistic/belligerent last week when the lesson was on keeping the Sabbath day holy (he's a 7th Day Adventist). Oh Mike. It may be getting to the point that we have to un-invite him to church. :(

Sister Healton came with us to visit Ruth on Friday. We didn't get to see Ruth earlier in the week because her daughter had an aneurysm. She told us she didn't get a chance to read in the BOM because of it, and she felt horrible about it all week. She said she kept wanting to read it. We took the time to read 1 Nephi 1 with her. We found out through that that she has a slight difficulty reading. It truly was inspired to have Sister Healton with us. She is a miracle herself in learning how to read. And she offered Ruth the BOM on cd that she can listen to as she follows along in the book. Sister Healton then said that she feels like she knows Ruth somehow, kind of like a kindred spirit or something. What a good fellowshipper. Ruth is still super excited about learning about the gospel. It's such a pleasure to teach her.

We stopped by Sister Eshelman's house to see how her job interviews went. She had 3 really good interviews that look promising. Her spirits were brighter. We promised her that as she came to church the Lord would bless her, specifically with finding a job. She volunteered that she'd be at church again yesterday. However, something must have happened because she wasn't there. :( We'll have to check on her this week.

We caught Sister Crull again finally. We were on her porch knocking as they pulled up. I could see her roll her eyes and I could tell she was searching for an excuse to send us on our way. But not finding one, she let us in. We talked a bit and shared a message about forgiveness with her. As we hugged her and left, I felt that she's slowly warming up to us. At first it seemed like she was just putting up with us, but I think she may eventually come to like us and even love us.

We had a good lesson with Jeff Saturday afternoon. We tracted into him last Saturday. He was really nice, and then let us in. His wife Becky at first seemed really not interested and like she might shoo us away, but as we talked about families and temples - they love Salt Lake City - she warmed up to us. As I was studying for what we would teach (BOM, pray to know, and Heavenly Father's love), I was concerned that maybe Becky would shut us down. I prayed hard that we'd be able to present the information and allow them to see how awesome the gospel is. We went over, and I guess in answer to prayer, Becky was sick. But we still met with Jeff, and it was a really great lesson. We showed him how awesome the BOM is and read from it with him. We asked him what his thoughts about it were, and he said that anything that helps him get closer to Christ is worth looking in to. He's really got his head on straight about learning for himself and not just blindly following what someone else (especially a pastor) tells him. I'm really excited that we were able to establish a good foundation with him so that if by chance Becky needs a little more work, we'll be given the chance since Jeff is at least partly on board already.

Saturday we finally got to see Tawny again. Her two friends, Krysta and Danielle, were there. We were able to talk with them all about being cleansed through the Atonement and exercising faith in Christ. Tawny hadn't read in the BOM yet, so we took the opportunity to read 1 Nephi 1 with the 3 of them. We had shared Alma 32:21 with them and Danielle continued reading silently on to the next page. She seems kind of interested, even though she readily stated that she has her own church. She's living with Tawny for the time being, so hopefully we'll be able to include her in on some of the lessons.

We met Jamie last night while tracting. He was the last door we knocked on. He ordered a video from the Church off a commercial, and the elders had met with him a few years ago. I think he's almost borderline argumentative on the differences in our doctrines, but he asked some good questions and actually gave us time to answer some of them. I saw a glimmer of hope as we shared with him some truths about the spirit world in 1 Peter. (He is in the same boat as Mike in associating our identity with our body and not our spirit.) I think if we can get him to feel the Spirit enough, he'll let us talk enough so that he can gain a knowledge of the truth. We set up an appointment with him for this week. I think it could go either way. I hope that the Lord softens more of his heart. I can see the goodness in him. I want him to progress!

That's it for this week. We've got some good things planned for this week. Yay!

sister humpherys

stick-to-itiveness

2011-03-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

Due to our investigators being sick or out of town, we only had 4 at church yesterday. Hopefully they'll all be back next Sunday. Church was really good. We had about 7 less-actives show up, and the chapel seemed to be filled. Sacrament and relief society were really good meetings.

Last Monday night we were able to find Antoine at home and his girlfriend was there too, so we could go inside. We tracted in to him and when we told him our names, he said we could just call him Brother Antoine then. :) He seemed really interested when we first met him, and we just finally got in to teach him. He was a back-up plan, so we didn't have a structured lesson plan. But the Lord was mindful of that. The Spirit led the lesson so well. We talked about God's love and prayer. Antoine was very open and offered his feelings and experiences. The 3 of us were able to play off each other. He asked us if prayer was very important, and after we finished talking about prayer, he said he was going to start praying. He's very receptive, and he really wants to learn and come closer to God. We got in for another lesson yesterday and found out that he's leaving to work on the river for 3 months today. So we tried to teach him about prophets and the BOM. It was kind of scattered, and a lot of time was spent talking about his idea of a family, so I don't think we presented it very well, but he's so interested to learn. He told us that we should call or text him specific passages to read and then we could discuss them over the phone. That's a good sign right there. We invited him to look on www.mormon.org as well for more information. He is just so open to spiritual things. I'm really sad that he's leaving. He's such a good guy and has so much potential. We're praying that he'll meet a member on his work crew. Here's hoping.

We met with Ruth twice again this week. She told us that she doesn't use the word "awesome" because she feels like it's a younger generation word. But she said she told her grandson about our visit and the things she's learning, and she used the word "awesome"! :) (She's probably in her 60's or 70's.) She is just so prepared. Brother Lamons has been talking with her for the last 3-4 years about the church. She has an easiness and readiness to believe. After talking about the Apostasy we invited her to be baptized, and she agreed to be baptized following her confirmation of the truth. We testified that she would receive a confirmation, and she fully believes she will. We went back Friday and she told us her daughter had a seizure that morning, so it was kind of a crazy morning. But she told us she just felt like she needed to read the Intro and Moroni 10:3-5 that we assigned her. So she did and she was so glad she did. We were too! We're really impressed that despite the craziness, she set aside time to read. What a great habit to start already! We shared with Ruth the account of the First Vision. We built it up and painted the scene. S. Mat shared Joseph Smith's words, and Ruth surprised us all (including herself) with her reaction. She said she felt cold chills, and then she was so overcome by the Spirit that she wept openly. She had to excuse herself to the other room to regain her composure. She came back after a few minutes and said that it just really touched her and it was almost overwhelming. Oh I love Ruth! We stressed the importance of reading the BOM and praying to know that it's true and committed her to do both things, and she readily agreed. The only thing holding her up right now is coming to church. Brother Lamons has a lot of health issues that has kept him from church for a while. He said though that hopefully come spring he'd be able to come.

We saw Judy again Tuesday night. Our last visit she wanted to know the main difference between us and other Christians. So we taught her about the pattern of prophets and how we have a prophet and 12 apostles today. She brought up the concern about false prophets, and we talked about the BOM and praying as a sure way to know the truth. She told us that she has a hard time accepting a living prophet. I love when people are honest in their hang ups so we know what to address! It makes things so much easier! If she hangs on long enough (lets us keep coming) and keeps commitments, she'll be a great member some day. After we left, S. Mat and I talked about what a great member she'd be, and how fun it'd be to go out on exchanges with her. She's just got such a fun personality and can make anyone feel comfortable. I really hope she maintains an open heart and mind so she can feel the converting power.

Tuesday we finally got in to see Carl & Tawny. They are so hard to catch! We taught them the end of the Plan of Salvation. Tawny seems more interested than Carl, even though Carl's parents are active members of the ward. She asked lots of great questions about the resurrection and the 3 kingdoms. There's so much potential there with her especially. The only problem is that our visits and church seem to be low on the priority list. She's happy to see us when we catch her, but they don't keep appointments, and they haven't come to church. They just need a fire lit under them, and they'd be good. :)

We taught Angie again Wednesday. She said she really liked church and the girls really loved primary! Yay! We were a little concerned about Angie's experience, so we were so grateful that she really enjoyed it. I'm sure it helped that she already had her answer that the Church is true before going. :) We began teaching her the Plan of Salvation. Again, she was blown away by the truths that are taught in the Bible but are skimmed over. As we talked about Adam & Eve, we assigned her to read 2 Nephi 2 to understand more from the words of the prophets themselves, and to experience learning doctrine straight from the BOM. As we followed up yesterday with her reading, she'd continued on in her chronological reading for 3 chapters, and then she read 2 Nephi 1-2. She said she read it about 3 times to fully grasp it, and she said she cried as she read it. Man, I just love her! Angie's been sick since Friday, so we missed teaching her a lesson and a lesson with the girls, and they weren't able to come to church. We stopped by last night and the girls were so sad they couldn't come to church. They talked about how great primary was. Emma (8) asked us how someone could know which church was right. We reminded her of what Joseph Smith did and said she could do the same things. We asked Emma and Mikela both what question they could ask Heavenly Father. Emma said "What church would make me the most happy?" and Mikela said "What church can I learn the most about you?" Wow! Very insightful for such young minds! Angie then shared with us that before we started visiting them, the girls said the same rote prayer for meals, but since we've been coming, they've actually prayed (vs. just saying a prayer). How neat! We didn't even have to teach them how to pray or anything. Man I love that family!

We met with Michael twice again. We taught him the commandments of praying often and studying the scriptures. He's already on board with praying often, and he's at about 2-3 times a week for scripture study. We invited him to read daily, especially from the BOM. He hasn't read much other than lately, he's read the 2 chapters we assigned him. So, in the last 5 months, he's been taught the Restoration and Plan of Salvation. It's just been recent that he's started to show signs of choosing to progress. I asked him if he had any questions about what he'd been taught. He said no, so then I asked if he believed what he'd been taught. He said he did, and then he said he believed 100% of it. Score! We began teaching him the gospel of Jesus Christ in the next visit. It went really well teaching him more about the Atonement and faith. He's on his way. It may take some time for him to quit smoking. He wants to, but there's some other issues, and the doctor told him not to try quitting yet. Hmm. We'll teach him the Word of Wisdom soon and see what happens.

We went to the middle of nowhere and taught Desiree again. She's been studying a lot from the BOM and she's found some church materials online that have been helping her. Luckily she's quick to spot anti and move on. She's going through a lot of stress right now with work and her living situation, and looking for some relief. As we talked with her, she said a senior missionary couple came to visit her about 6-7 years ago. Based on that, it sounds like she actually is a member. Her mom told her that she'd been blessed but not baptized, but maybe she was baptized. Either way, she's one of Heavenly Father's children that's making her way back.

We got to teach Stephanie again. We taught her about the Savior's life and ministry from the BOM to kill 2 birds with one stone - teach her about Christ, and get her in the BOM. Things are changing with her. She used to never call or text us back and she'd miss appointments, but now she always gets back to us. And this time she even called to tell us she was running a little late getting home and she didn't want to miss us. Progress! She then came to the relief society activity with us - free food! I think she had a good time. I was sitting with Melody though, so I didn't get a chance to talk with her.

Mike. Mike. Mike. Goodness. We asked if he had any questions about the pre-earth life, and we talked about that again. He flat out doesn't believe it. He sees the creation of spirits before creating us here as a pointless step. He still sees us as physical beings, rather than associating our identity with our spirits. He sees our spirits kind of serving the function of electricity - it makes us alive - but our spirit is not our identity. I shared with him an idea that LeGrand Richards shares in A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. He points out that our religion does not depend on the Bible for our teachings. Had all the Bibles been taken away, our teachings would be found to be in harmony with the Bible. Mike has such a hard time with things that we teach that are not in the Bible. I shared that thought with him. Then I asked if our view of the pre-earth life contradicted anything in the Bible. He admitted that it didn't. So I told him we had to use another test to prove something true or false because the Bible does not contain all truth. I showed him that that's the need for additional scripture - it increases our knowledge base. He agreed that that would happen (agreement!!) if our other scriptures were true. Right on. So we told him we're going to focus on helping him get in to the BOM so that he can judge for himself and come to know that it is true. It sure is slow going with him, but he is making progress. It sure makes it a challenge to teach him though. Hopefully future missionaries will be able to have the "stick-to-itiveness" (word from Mike) that he says we have.

We stopped by the Buttermores Friday night. It's been a few weeks since we invited them to read and pray about the BOM. Ron has read a little (the introductory things and the first chapter). Judi hasn't been able to read because she's had a lot of health problems come up. But she's good now, and we gave her her very own BOM and she was excited to read it. I sure hope they stick with it. I know conversion can and will come if they want it.

Sunday at church, there were a lot of people there that we have been working with to some degree: Brother Isaac, Sister Haworth, Sister Eshelman (YAY!!! She really enjoyed sacrament and said she'll be back!!), Sister Lamott & her boys (just briefly met her on the doorstep), Sister Gray, Sister Boonstra, and the Engles. They are all great people, and I hope they all keep coming. They can add a lot to the ward!

That's about it for this week's novel. Miracles keep happening here in Kokomo. I love it!

sister smurf

full house at church!

2011-02-28T09:43:00.001-07:00

Guess how many investigators we had at church yesterday?! We have been averaging 3 or 4 since I've been here. But yesterday, we had EIGHT!!! Wahoo! Such a good feeling! Melody, Ethan, Deven, Theral, Michael, and the Williams family (Angie)! We were also blessed to see the Watanabe family there - a less-active family I hadn't met yet. Also, the younger Sister Rhoades came! We committed them to come to church a few weeks ago. We stopped by last week, and she was having a hard time with the passing of her mother. We gave her a spiritual boost, and she gave us a surprise by showing up at church yesterday with her hilarious son Hank. Oh I love when people come to church!

Oh I love Angie, Emma, and Mikela more and more! We taught them 4 times this week. Wednesday we met with just Angie and asked her about her thoughts/feelings about the things we had talked about on Monday about baptism. She expressed her feelings about her baptism and we reassured her that her baptism was a great thing to lead her to where she's at today. We had a more structured lesson prepared, but I felt restrained for some reason. So I searched for what to say. I don't remember how, but the reason for feeling restrained came up. Angie pointed to a picture we had drawn about the path(s) leading to God and said she wanted "that", but it was so hard. She broke down then and shared her concerns about her husband who is an atheist. She is so worried about something happening to him and never being able to see him again. It's been very taxing on her marriage, but she believes in keeping the family together, and she loves him so much. She is such a strong woman. She's been carrying such a heavy burden. We gave her some peace and reassurance that this gospel offers hope for her and her husband. We went over Thursday night and taught her about the Atonement and the spirit world, and boy, what a powerful lesson. If anyone needed the peace and comfort that comes from the knowledge of the spirit world, it was Angie. We shared with her from D&C 138, and then what really got her was the verses from 1 Peter 3 & 4 as well as 1 Cor. 15:29. She was shocked that her answers were right there the whole time and she never knew it. Her leaky spirit showed again as it always does. :) Emma and Mikela asked why she was crying, and she said she was just so happy about what she had just learned and it really brought her relief from the pain she'd been carrying around all these years. Oh, what a neat thing to witness - Angie is being healed by the Atonement as she learns more about this gospel. It's so real it's almost tangible! Angie was SO appreciative of us coming over and teaching her. I am so appreciative of her letting us teach her! She's so golden! I love going over there to teach her and her girls! Saturday we went and watched the REST DVD with the girls and taught them about getting answers to their prayers and that they can know which church is true. We asked Angie to share her feelings, and she told us and them that she'd gotten her answer. She explained the peace, assurance, and warmth she felt. What a powerful testimony from a mother to her young daughters! Angie told us that she doesn't really have a decision to make, it's already been made for her, she just needs to do it. !!!!!!! (That means extreme excitement. hehe) I was getting antsy at church waiting for them to show up. S. Mat was sitting with our other investigators and I was waiting right outside the chapel. I hope there's not a rule about running in the church, because as soon as I saw Angie and her girls walking down the hall, I took off running! I was so excited! I about ran over the people that were in front of them. Oops! Oh man, I love that feeling of joy! Angie liked church, and even made a comment in relief society. The girls were a little restless in sacrament meeting (high council Sunday...) but they said they liked primary. We're a little nervous about Mikela because she's shy and a little hesitant to answer questions or what not in lessons (though she's really bright). We found out that Sister Isaac's daughter is good friends with Mikela and they were in the same class last year. So hopefully that friendship will help Mikela out. Oh, I forgot. Saturday when we went over for the lesson, Emma gave us a picture she had drawn of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. Oh it was so cute! We hung it up on the fridge at home. :)

Tuesday night we had a lesson with Carl & Tawny finally! They don't have a phone and it's near impossible to catch them. We had a good, brief lesson on the spirit world, and Tawny really seemed to like it. We set up an appointment for Wednesday night and we were so excited. Sadly, it was not too much of a surprise when they weren't home for the appointment. :(

Sister Jones came with us to visit Michael on Wednesday. He had read over Alma 40 a few times and he liked it. We finished up the Plan of Salvation with him, pointing out the "hidden truths" in the Bible about the 3 kingdoms. He really liked that, and seeing how things fit together visually, as well as the Bible and BOM. It was a good lesson, and again, his prayer showed understanding and acceptance. He's slowly becoming more proactive in this process. He is beginning to be the one to bring up seeing us at church, and after church yesterday, he confirmed that we were still coming on Wednesday. Progress!

Sister Jones was also with us to see Sister Eshelman. She's such a sweet lady with a good testimony, but she hasn't been to church since about 1996. She was having a rough day, but she let us in. We sang her some songs, and shared a short lesson with her to boost her spirits. We again invited her to come to church, promising that the job/financial situation would work out. She was hesitant again. She mentioned the first time that it's just hard to go alone (husband no longer a member). She's now met Sister Jones and Sister Isaac, so she'd have a familiar face at least. I think there's maybe something else keeping her. I'm not sure what it is though.

We stopped in to see the Engles that night. Brother Engle was already asleep, but we visited with Sister Engle. They've missed the last few weeks due to illness, but Sister Engle said that they were going to come back again. It's so neat to see a less-active (for 20+ years) who wants to come back. They said they're not up for all 3 hours of church yet, but they'll get there.

We finally got to teach Stephanie again. It's the first time we've had a full lesson with her since I've been here. The other times it's just been a quick scripture. But we took Sister Coffman with us and we were able to teach the first few principles of the REST lesson to her. It went really well. Things were flowing well and I was able to connect things together, and I didn't have to wonder what to say. I felt confident, and I felt that I was actually teaching Stephanie, not just teaching a lesson. Afterwards, S. Mat apologized for if I felt like she left me hanging but she was in awe of how smoothly things were going. Hah. She's so funny. Stephanie brought up that there's people at work who get Sundays off for religious reasons but they don't go to church, and because of that, she - who wants to go to church - has to work. We asked if she could ask for it off for religious reasons, and she received some inspiration - she could maybe get every other Sunday off. Here's hoping!

We met with Deven again. I had been thinking on the way over that it'd be nice to be able to teach without his stepmom there. What a surprise when we got there and his parents were gone! (Luckily there was an 18 year old girl there so we could still teach.) So we decided to switch things up and begin teaching him the Plan of Salvation. It was nice to be able to focus solely on Deven and not worry about what Sister Hanson was thinking, etc.

Sister Healton came with us to teach Mike again. We planned on teaching him how to recognize the Holy Ghost. We started out talking about who He is and what he does. He has this "stupid idea" (his words, not mine) that we have 2 guardian angels - one here, one in heaven recording. And he thinks that the Spirit is not one person but many people, so that multiple people can feel Him at the same time. We shared passages from John 14-16, as well as D&C 130:22 to help him see that He is one person, just a spirit. It went alright - he's not fully won over, but getting there. Just as we were about to transition to how we recognize the Holy Ghost, Mike got side tracked on something about the spirit world, and that led to the idea of us being spirit children, that he has a really hard time grasping. We shared the verses in 1 Peter about the spirit world and how the spirits live on while the body is in the grave. His response was startling. He said they don't really study 1 Peter much because it's "eerie" and we don't understand it. Basically there was the feeling that he didn't believe Peter's words. (And people claim that we don't believe the Bible!) As we talked and tried to help Mike understand, I realized that he identifies himself as being a physical body that was brought to life by a spirit, and that's why it's so hard for him to accept/grasp the concept of a premortal existence. If he could identify his person as a spirit tabernacled in "clay", he could make so much progress. I feel like he's slowly getting the hang of it. It'll take a lot of time to uproot his previous notions, but if he sticks with it, it'll come.

Brother Lalonde gave us a name of a less-active, part-member family that lives in the outskirts of nowhere. Sister Healton took us out there and we met Sister Brafford. She warmed up to us after a bit. She hasn't been active since she was 18. We read with her from 3 Nephi 18 about the importance of the sacrament and invited her to church. She said no, and said she's not ready to come back yet. Key word: yet. She did ask for the meeting times, so she is thinking about it somewhat. I see some potential there.

Saturday we went to see another referral, this one from Brother Myers. He home teaches Brother Lamons and Brother Myers told us the girl he's living with might be interested. We weren't sure whether that came from Brother Lamons or Ruth. We were welcomed in with open arms. Brother Lamons really loves the gospel. He's had some health issues and that is at least part of why he hasn't been to church. Ruth is really interested in learning. We taught her what the BOM is, and she was really happy to learn that. We have another appointment tomorrow with them. I see some good potential there as well! Yay for ward referrals!

We went back to see Bernie & Sue that afternoon. We tracted into them and she let us right in. He used to be a pastor (in his 70s or 80s now), but he said he wanted to know what we believe, and hear it from a member of the church, rather than outside sources. Like most pastors, he has a tendency to talk too much. He did ask a question about the BOM, and we gave him a brief run down of prophets and explained what the BOM is. He was so close-minded to it though. And very much had the spirit of contention. And what's worse is that he wouldn't let us get a word in. I feel bad that he (as well as so many others) are so closed to the truth, and they are led so far astray, masquerading under the banner of Christianity. He totally twisted the words of John 3:5 and said baptism isn't important, and that's not what Christ meant. Whoa. S. Mat abruptly ended the lesson and we were out of there. There was so much a lack of the Spirit. But it breaks my heart to see people so far from the truth.

We had the time and the miles, so we went up north to track down some less-actives. We found Sister Brock. She's 85. She's quite interesting. We can't tell for sure if her memory is fully there. We saw her Saturday and Sunday. From comments she made Saturday, it sounded like she didn't remember that she was Mormon or that we were Mormons. But then Sunday she mentioned that her parents were Mormon, so maybe she does remember. She's such a sweet lady though. Very strong faith and connection to God. She told us that she felt like she knew S. Mat. She said she'd dreamed of her a handful of times, and she said she'd seen me a lot. Interesting. She then said that God was telling her things, and then she told us. She said that S. Mat had a special work to do, and she'd know it when it came. She also mentioned something about working with the "rough ones". She told me that I was going to be some kind of special missionary, where most women don't usually travel. She then said that something fantastic was about to happen to us, but that she wouldn't be around for it. Again, she said there would be very interesting experiences, but to watch out because Satan was going to hit us. So... is that prophecy, or is she just a crazy lady? :) Who knows.

We stopped in last night to see Sister Boonstra. We hadn't been able to catch her during the week, and she wasn't at church. One of the first things she said to us was an apology for not coming to church. Her ex-husband had surgery, and she had to take care of him. But she said she'd be there next week. She's progressing so much. It started out with having to try to convince her to come to church, and now she's the one talking about coming. Yay! I love when people progress!

Well, I believe that's about it. Last night or this morning I remembered something that happened last week that I forgot to write about, but shame on me, I didn't write it down, so I forgot it again. Oops. Well, I hope this finds you all well. Thanks for your love and support.

sister humpherys

another movie

2011-02-22T09:38:00.001-07:00

hit and run

2011-02-22T09:36:00.001-07:00

Our lovely car doesn't look so lovely anymore. :( We were parked outside the Spencer's (ward mission leader) home yesterday and someone did a nice number on our car. We were downstairs and had no idea. Luckily, the Spencers have a nosy neighbor who saw the whole thing and came and told us. The police are trying to find the culprit. Luckily the car is still driveable, and we weren't in the car, so we are just fine and dandy. The door is being held shut at the moment, and it makes for a not so nice breeze while driving. But it sure beats walking, so I won't complain.

Last Monday we took Sister Rhoades with us to go see the Buttermores. They didn't really give us a clear answer as to why they dropped us my first week here. After a video presentation in zone conference about not giving up on people, S. Mat had a feeling we should go back and see them and get to the bottom of things. So we talked a bit and discovered that they dropped us because they don't understand our teachings. Ron thinks he's too old to change. We emphasized the BOM and testified that if they really wanted to understand, it would come through reading and praying about the BOM. We committed them to do just that. Judi was more easily convinced than Ron. He said he'd read, but he's not much of a pray-er. They have so much potential if they'll just put in an honest effort. S. Mat has told me that they said they want it to be true. Hopefully the Spirit will work on them and slowly we'll be able to get back in and teach them more. They would be such great members.

Funny story: Tuesday we went out to try to find some less actives. We pulled into an apartment complex and parked. A lady came to her glass sliding door and stared at us. Creeper. We prayed, and then we noticed that she was still staring at us, and her husband was there too. There weren't any blinds on the door or anything. Awkward. S. Mat noticed that there were assigned parking spaces, so we thought maybe we were in theirs. So, even more awkward, I got out of the car and backed S. Mat and we parked out on the street. The less active we were looking for lived in that same building, so we approached from the other way so we wouldn't have to walk past the creepy people's glass door. We went in and walked upstairs to find that the less active no longer lived there. We came back downstairs and the creepy lady got even more creepy - she came outside and looked at us, and then went back inside. Crazy lady! That's probably the most creeper-like thing that's happened on my mission.

We taught Michael on Wednesday with Sister Healton. We taught him about the spirit world. He didn't have any real idea about what happens after death other than that our spirits live on. He was interested in the spirit world, and in his closing prayer he showed his understanding and acceptance of it. He's still slow in getting into the BOM and being proactive in his conversion. I almost kind of feel bad teaching someone if they're not going to act on it. It kind of condemns them. Hmm. But who knows, maybe he'll start acting soon.

Sister Isaac - the relief society president - is awesome! She is so willing to come out with us on a moment's notice. Tuesday she was with us and we tried to see Sister Crow - a less active. She no longer lived at the address we had. Sister Isaac called us Wednesday and said she had called the phone number and found Sister Crow and talked with her and she set up an appointment with us! So we went to see her with Sister Isaac on Thursday. Sister Crow is really receptive. She's got a strong testimony. She moved here recently, and just hasn't been out to church but once. But she told us she had decided she needed to come back, and then we found her. She was at church on Sunday with her 2 granddaughters that she's living with. Yay!

Thursday another miracle happened. We were out tracting and we found Judy. She teaches karate with Brother Andrews at our church. S. Mat's first transfer here Brother Andrews had Judy and the sisters over for dinner and a lesson. Apparently Judy wasn't too interested in converting, so it didn't go anywhere. We knocked on her door and she remembered S. Mat. She let us in and we talked for a few minutes, but we had an appointment, so I asked if we could set up an appointment. She asked if we were going to try to convert her again and S. Mat said yes. :) Judy then said "okay". She's such a funny lady. We went back to teach her the Plan of Salvation on Friday. It was a really energetic lesson. She had some questions, so we didn't get to everything, but they were good questions. We gave her a BOM and she was excited to get it and even asked us to put our names in it along with the date we gave it to her. At the end of our visit she wanted to know what the main difference was between us and Protestants. We tried to give her the short answer, but she wanted the long answer. We didn't have time though, so we told her we'd come back and talk more about that next time. We hooked her into another appointment. :) She's such a funny lady. She'd be a great member too.

We met with Mike Friday again. Last Sunday he was quite contentious and almost malicious in Sunday school, so we decided we really needed to address that with him. We talked about feeling the Spirit at church and our mindset and preparation so that we can feel the Spirit. (He was doing something with basketball scores last sacrament meeting.) We asked him if he felt the Spirit at his church or our church, and he said no. Then he told us our sacrament meeting bores him to tears. We asked him why in the world he comes then. He told us it was partly to keep us happy, and partly because he enjoys Sunday school. We brought up the issue of his attitude at church and how our beliefs shouldn't be put on trial at church. He said he recognized that he had kind of "ruffled some feathers" last week. He was really humble, and said he'd be more aware of not being contentious. He also said that he had felt bad about doing the basketball scores in sacrament, but he did it anyway. In talking with S. Mat after the lesson, we realized that he does feel the Spirit, he just doesn't recognize it as that, and he's been used to ignoring the Spirit for so long. We're convinced that he feels the Spirit at church and our lessons, and that's why he sticks with it, even though he's convinced our church is wrong. He doesn't know what he's feeling. It's amazing to me that after so many years of ignoring the Spirit, that he can still feel it. Now it's our opportunity to help him recognize the Spirit so he can start following the promptings.

Angie missed our Wednesday appointment. :( We stopped by Friday and she said she'd gotten tied up in helping her mom, and she thought she would be back in time. We had 2 good lessons with her and the kids though Saturday and Monday. Saturday we played the apostasy game. (It's like telephone/gossip but it's with pictures and written words instead of whispering in someone's ear.) We taught them the principle of apostasy as well as the need for a prophet to keep things right. We asked Angie what she thought about having a prophet on the earth. She has such a leaky spirit. She said that is was awesome knowing that there was a direct contact with God on the earth. Man I love her! She's so golden! We asked her about her reading and praying. She said she'd only been able to read a chapter, but she'd been praying a lot about Joseph Smith and the BOM. She said she felt like she'd been getting answers. We asked her to describe them, and she said she just felt so much peace and felt that this is the right way to go. YAY!!!! Man, she's so in tune with the Spirit!! I love it! Monday we taught about baptism. We were planning on teaching Angie but it was a holiday so the kids were home, so we had to switch up the lesson a bit and we addressed it to the kids. We taught about Christ being baptized by John the Baptist because he had been given that job (aka authority). Emma, who's 8, really impressed us with her questions. She asked how we know who has been given that job to baptize people, and so we were able to talk about authority given by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority. She asked another really good question, but I can't remember it now. I looked over at Angie and was going to ask a question, but I saw tears in her eyes, so I asked what she was thinking/feeling. She said she was really appreciative of us coming to teach her girls things that she wants to teach them but doesn't feel like she knows enough. She also had a sense of pride in her girls because they do know a lot and they want to learn more. Angie is such a good mom. She's raised her girls well. We extended the commitment to be baptized. Angie said she wants to, but she wants some time to think about it. Emma said yes, and Mikela said she didn't know. I think she was a little shy, and maybe also a little jealous that we focused on Emma because she had good questions. We're going to meet with just Angie tomorrow and talk with her more about baptism and find out her concerns. They were supposed to come to church Sunday, but they didn't show. :( Major bummer. We stopped by Sunday afternoon and found out they didn't come because Angie didn't get up in enough time to get ready. We also found out that Emma was so excited to come that she had been up since like 5 am. Both Emma and Mikela were super bummed that they didn't get to come. Angie promised them that they would make it next week. Angie expressed to us earlier her concern of knowing things but not always following through. Her girls are what's going to get her to church. Since they were up and planning on coming to church anyway, they did make it to their church at 11:00. Better than nothing I guess. I'm so excited for them. They are so solid! I hope that we can meet Angie's husband soon and get him in on the action so we can teach and baptize the whole family. He's so busy with work though.

Last night we finally saw Jeanette again. It's been just over a week since we've been able to catch her. She's got so much stuff on her plate to handle. It seems like every time we go over there's something new added to her plate. She tends to go off on that and use up all our time filling us in on all the mess. It's good to be there to listen to her and support her, but what she really needs is the gospel. Things are on the verge of collapsing for her right now. She's doing an amazing balancing act, but she can't hold it. We very directly told her that what she needs is this gospel - it's the one thing that you can add to your life that makes everything else either drop out or get put in order so that you can handle everything. We're going to try to have daily contact with her and have our lessons be a mental vacation from all her stress. Our appointment with her tonight is key in setting that tone. She's not used to seeing us as teachers, but rather listeners. So we'll have to discern how to still show her that we care about her as we plow ahead in teaching her rather than just being sounding boards.

Sister Boonstra finally came to church! We've been visiting with her about once a week since before I got here. She mentioned she didn't have anything to wear to church. S. Mat had gotten her a skirt, but it wasn't the right size. Leave it up to Sister Isaac to be awesome again. She went out and bought a skirt and blouse for her. Sister Boonstra was very appreciative and then she really did come! Oh it was so good to see her there! Hopefully she continues to come. Sister Isaac said she'll have to buy her more shirts so she doesn't have to wear the same thing every week. Oh I love her!

Well, I guess I should tell you about transfers. Sorry, I forgot. S. Mat and I are staying together! That came as a surprise. We were both sure that she would be leaving. But, we were wrong! I'm glad that we get to stay together, because she's like my best friend. At the same time though, a change would've been nice because it's easier to start/stop habits when you get a new companion or a new area. It'll be a bigger challenge to start/stop habits that we've developed this past transfer, so hopefully I'm up to the challenge. I hope I don't get complacent. There's lots of room for improvement, and I want to make those improvements. I love my S. Mat, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to continue learning and growing with her, and experiencing more miracles!

I guess that's it for this week. Take care!

sister smurf

p.s. the movies are of the Haus' dogs eating crackers and peanut butter and it gets stuck on the roof of their mouths - cheap entertainment. :) Let me know if you're able to view them.

ugh

2011-02-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'm so sick of being sick! I got another bad cold this week. Last winter I was blessed to not get sick at all, but this winter, I've gotten a week-long cold 3 times! So not fun. It sure makes it a challenge to get out and be a good missionary when your head is spinning and feels fuzzy. But, despite that, and S. Mat also having a cold, we had some good things happen this week.

We met with Angie again Wednesday. She is SO golden!! We decided to hit more on prophets and then get to the Restoration. But first off, we asked about her BOM reading. She apologized for not getting as far as she wanted in it. But in a week's time, she got to 1 Nephi 10! She's really loving it. She has such a drive! The lesson we had was amazing! We testified that God had called a prophet again and shared with her the account of the First Vision. We had the pamphlet open to the depiction of it, and as I quoted Joseph's words, tears came in abundance - to all of us. Angie was SO touched by the Spirit! I am so so so impressed with how in tune she is to the whisperings of the Spirit. She is so ready for this gospel! We invited her to pray about Joseph Smith and the BOM and to continue reading. She readily accepted. She just soaks everything right up.
We met again on Friday, this time to have a lesson with her two daughters. But before that, we followed up on her reading and praying. She said she was impressed to read chapter 10 over again, so she did and found some verses she really liked. She made it to chapter 13 then. She had prayed and she said she wasn't sure if she'd gotten an answer yet, but she shared an experience. She works at a pharmacy, and she said she'd been thinking about everything we'd shared and at work one day (between Wednesday and Friday) she called another pharmacist for something. He was telling her the name of a drug, and in so doing, he slipped and accidentally said "Mormon". It took her so off guard that she hung up the phone without even finishing the conversation. :) The Lord works in mysterious ways!
The lesson with Emma and Mikela went really well. They are young (still baptism age!), but they are so bright. We used the Apostasy cups lesson to teach about Christ's church. They really liked it. They were such attentive listeners! I've never met kids their age so interested in learning! The lesson was a great lead in to inviting them to come to Christ's church that we had just "built" in our lesson. The girls were so excited and begged their mom to come. Unfortunately, Angie had to work. We'll get them next time though! I am so impressed with that family! Angie's husband works a lot, so we haven't gotten to meet him yet. Hopefully he'll jump on board too. That'd be awesome to baptize a family of 4!

We finally got to meet with Michael inside, rather than out in the cold. Any time we got another sister to come with us, he'd cancel, and when we didn't get a sister, then he was there. But Sister Isaac was with us this time, so we got to be inside where it's warm. We talked with him about the Atonement, and taught how important it was to read the BOM to gain a greater understanding of the Atonement. He hasn't been reading too much lately. He kinda seems like a guy that just goes with the flow. Hopefully getting in the BOM will give him a push. We read Alma 7:11-12 with him, and he related very well with vs. 11 and said it sounded like everything he'd gone through. Hopefully that connection will help him read more. He was supposed to come to church Sunday but his ride said he wasn't there. :(

We finally got back to see Sister Eshelman with Sister Isaac. She hasn't been to church since about 1996 when her husband left the church. She says she's still got faith though and she reads from the scriptures daily. Something I've learned about faith though: it's more than just an acknowledgment - it requires action! If it doesn't result in action, it's just belief, and belief doesn't have the power to save that faith does. She's in desperate need of a job right now to help make ends meet, and we promised her if she came to church, a way would be provided. She sounded hopeful, and said she'd try to come. No such luck though. :( We need to help her strengthen her faith. She's such a great lady and would be such an asset to our relief society.

We were finally able to meet with Melody and Ethan again. We had a lesson prepared about baptism and exaltation, in hopes of helping her see just how crucial baptism is. She had great news for us. She told us she talked to her mom (finally) about a baptism date, and she's planning on March. She chose for herself to restart the stop smoking program this week, and begin it with a fast. We hopped on board and decided to fast with her. And she finally made it to church again - the first time since I've been here. I really hope this drive and motivation will last so that she and Ethan can finally be baptized. They both need it so much. They need those blessings and the added strength that comes from the gift of the Holy Ghost.

We met with Deven again Thursday night. He wasn't as focused as he has been the last 2 weeks, and he hadn't completed his assignment. :( He said he lost the sticky note it was written on. Add to that that he didn't even know where his scriptures were. We talked with him about the importance of reading the scriptures so that we can receive answers to our prayers. He shared with us that he was getting more answers. He told us he went to another church for basketball, and he felt sad and alone, and he felt like that was the Holy Ghost telling him that that church wasn't true. Wow, what an amazing 11 year old to be on top of something like that. Sister Hanson (not a member, and doesn't like our faith) tried to discredit Deven's thoughts/feelings about it, but he stood firm. It's sometimes hard in lessons because Sister Hanson brings things up (this time she questioned us having a prophet today, as well as that all the apostles were American). She doesn't want to investigate though. It distracts Deven at times when she brings things like that up. It's hard to know what to do at times. Deven also wasn't at church Sunday. :( Don't know what happened there because as of Thursday he was planning on it.

Friday we met with Mike again. He had brought up the time before that he wanted to learn more about authority since our church stresses it so much, and his doesn't. Our lesson started out on a tangent though about prayer. Sister Healton made a comment that there was nothing more important than praying to Heavenly Father, and Mike disagreed with that. He didn't even have an answer for what he thought was more important. I swear sometimes he argues just for the sake of arguing. So many times, he follows a comment that we make by "well that's what you think". We finally got off that tangent, and we talked about the need for authority and the Restoration of the Priesthood. He wasn't as argumentative, probably because there was no counter side he could see. He came to church Sunday. Oh boy. He wasn't even paying attention in sacrament meeting - he was doing something with the scoreboard section of the newspaper. Sunday School was a trip. We got in to the fall of Adam and Eve, and he disagrees with our viewpoint and was almost malicious about it. It's almost to the point that he may be uninvited unfortunately. I don't know why he comes, since he is convinced in his mind that we are wrong. He argues about nit picky things that don't even matter. He asked (again) why we say "Heavenly Father" instead of "The Heavenly Father". Satan's definitely got him distracted from what's important. Ugh. We're going to have to talk with him this week about church being a place of worship and he is not welcome to disturb that atmosphere.

Saturday our 3 solid appointments all canceled. Ugh. We weren't sure what to do. We were going on exchanges with Sister Spencer, and we decided since we had the time, maybe we'd ask her to take us to a referral that lives in the middle of nowhere. Well, the Lord decided to tweak that plan just slightly. We got to the Spencers' house and Brother Spencer said he had a referral for us. A lady named Desiree called the church that morning and talked with the Bishop. She said she needed to find God, and he told her he'd send us. She lives in the middle of nowhere too. So, the "who" of our plans changed, but the "what" stayed the same.

Desiree is very ready for this gospel. Her parents are members in Washington, and it was her mom who told her to call the church. Desiree was blessed and in the church until about 10, but she was never baptized. She's been reading in her triple combination, and she's already prayed about this church being true. Whoa! We asked her what her answer was, and she said the fact that we were there should mean something. She said she felt a quiet reassurance about it. We committed her to baptism and she accepted! The catch is that she 1) lives in the middle of nowhere and 2) works every Sunday and her boss won't let her off. Sister Spencer informed all of us though that there's some state law that prohibits employers from forcing you to work every weekend or something of that nature (it's somehow related to being able to go to church). So, there's hope. What a Godsend that our appointments canceled so that we could go out there, and amazing that we had asked Sister Spencer to come with us (that's the only way we would've gotten that referral from Bro. Spencer that day).

A mission is kind of like climbing up a down escalator. I've realized as of late that I haven't been as proactive in climbing up as I need to, so I've been slipping down a bit. I've really learned a lot from being with Sister Mat. I'm more aware of things that I need to do or do better. I don't really know how to be a good junior companion. Guess that means one of 2 things: I'll either go back to senior, or I'll stay junior until I figure it out. :)

Well, my head is still fuzzy from this darn cold, so I can't think of what else I was going to share. Gonna go take a nap now.

sister humpherys

kokomo: the land of the dead

2011-02-09T09:02:00.001-07:00

I have never seen so many cemeteries in one place! And big ones at that! There's one that is on both sides of a semi-major road, and it goes for a few blocks. I swear, there's more cemeteries and churches here than anything else. :)

(S. Mat was sick on Monday and we had zone conference yesterday, so that's why it's Wednesday that I'm writing.)

Well, we survived the storm! And we actually got a lot less than was forecasted. Silly weatherman, he can't seem to get much right. We got about 4-5 inches of ice - it came down in little pellets. That was not fun to walk in as it came down and pelted our faces. Then the next day we got maybe about 3 inches of snow. Nothing compared to the 18 inches some people said was coming. We were grounded (no driving mission cars) for 2 and a half days. So, that slowed the work a bit, but we were still able to get out and do some good. We got more snow Saturday and that was a mess because we were on exchanges and needed to get S. Mat back from Lafayette. Luckily the Bishop was inspired to give us a call right after our last resort fell through and offered to help in any way we needed.

We met with Angie Wednesday. We were told to only walk to solid appointments within walking distance that day. Other than that, we were supposed to stay inside. We walked 75 minutes to Angie's house - that's the closest anyone is to us! We had a really awesome lesson with her about prophets and the BOM. We went over a little of God's use of prophets to show His love and concern for us and our families. We taught her what the BOM was, and she said it really sparked an interest in her. She decided herself that she would dig out her copy from when the sisters met with her about 6 years ago and she would start reading it. We pointed out to her that that "spark of interest" was the Holy Ghost connecting with the Light of Christ in her, teaching her the truth. We talked about knowing for herself what is true, and she said she learns best by listening and absorbing and then reading and studying and figuring out for herself what is right, and that's how she teaches her girls. Man, she has so much real intent!! She is so super awesome! We invited her to say the closing prayer. She was at first reluctant because she'd never prayed in front of people before. My being my silly self told her that we'd close our eyes and wouldn't watch so it'd be like we weren't even there. :) It worked! She said the most amazing prayer! It was so sincere! She felt the Spirit really strong and started crying. Man, it was amazing! She graciously thanked us for coming, for braving the storm. If that wasn't enough of a miracle for you, here's another one. Our phone has been acting up lately. Sometimes we don't get missed calls and voicemails until a few hours after they happen. On our walk back home after Angie's lesson, our phone beeps. It was a missed call from Angie and a voicemail BEFORE the lesson. She called to cancel the appointment. Thank goodness we didn't get that until after the lesson! God sure does work in mysterious ways! We stopped by the next day to see if Angie found her BOM and to explain that we hadn't gotten the message until after we came. She wasn't there, so we started to write her a note. But before I was done writing, she pulled up the driveway. She was super excited to see us, and so were her two girls. She had found the BOM, but she hadn't started reading it, but that was her plan for the weekend. Man, she is so awesome. Yesterday morning we stopped at CVS to grab some Sprite and cough drops, and Angie works in the pharmacy. She recognized us from a distance and said hello. Oh goodness, I just love Angie.

We met with Deven again Thursday night. He'd read the scriptures and he'd prayed about the Bible and BOM being true. He said he didn't really feel/see a result from the prayer, so we spent time talking about how to recognize the Spirit. Since we've been giving him more responsibility for his progression, our lessons with him have been more focused, and he's really learning. He's bringing his dad's scriptures to church now. He even dressed up in a nice button up and slacks 2 Sundays ago. I'm really impressed with him as an 11 year old. As long as his parents don't hinder him, he's well on his way to gaining a testimony of this gospel.

Friday S. Gibbs (S. Mat's daughter) was here on exchanges with me. We met with Mike with S. Healton again. We asked about his BOM reading, and he said he'd read the intros and the witnesses, but hadn't gotten too far into the actual BOM yet. He said he just couldn't understand how Joseph Smith could claim to be a prophet. We had planned to talk about praying with faith, but we decided to take a detour. The 3 of us testified of how we came to know the BOM was true. Mike is the kind who wants physical proof, or proof from the Bible. We talked about that and taught him that the witness that we must receive is from God, not from man, and that is far greater than physical proof. I shared the example of how years ago, people had "proof" that the earth was flat and was also the center of the universe. They were ultimately proven wrong. But when we rely on the wisdom of God, rather than the wisdom of man, we can never be proven wrong. He seemed a little less argumentative this time, but he's still got a big stumbling block to get over. He brought up that it interested him that we stress so much of authority and he didn't really understand it because they don't stress authority at all, so we decided that's what we can discuss next time. I think his reaction to our explanation of the need for authority and Joseph Smith might be a deciding factor as to whether we keep teaching him.

We were able to get in and see John that day and begin teaching him. We tracted into him and he really liked the idea of eternal families. We weren't able to have a full lesson with him, so we talked a little more of eternal families and how this church is the only way to have an eternal family. He was interested/shocked to hear that it was only done by our church. He hasn't really bought in to the idea of only one true church yet, but he does like eternal families. So hopefully that can be the building block for his faith to start.

We got to see Keisha Saturday morning. We talked with her about praying for understanding, knowledge, and peace, etc rather than just praying for this or that to happen or not happen. She had never done that before. She told us that she turned to prayer when she was 12 and her parents' marriage was struggling. She prayed that it would stop. She had that faith in prayer, but I think maybe because her prayer wasn't answered in how she wanted, she kind of lost that faith in prayer. Sister Jones bore a powerful testimony to Keisha that she was a daughter of God and He wanted to talk to her and help her be happy. I think Keisha really needed to hear that. Each visit we've invited Keisha to say the closing prayer, but she's always denied. This time, with a lot of coaching, she said the closing prayer! What a great step in her progression! They were supposed to come to church Sunday, but AGAIN they didn't come. :( I don't know what it is that will get them there. They came once before I got here, and they haven't been since. Hmm.

Colton came to church Sunday! YAY! James called us Saturday night and asked if we would teach Colton after church. Yay for missionary work working like it's supposed to! So we met afterwards and Colton said he really liked church. Even though he was sick and tired, he enjoyed it! We talked with him about the BOM and testified of the power that it had to rock his world. We talked about the need for the BOM to clarify seeming inconsistencies or contradictions in the Bible. We gave my favorite analogy of needing 2 points to specify a certain line - those 2 points being the Bible and the BOM. He then showed his understanding by saying there was a kid at school who didn't believe the Bible because of contradictions and Colton said "so you're saying that if he read the BOM, then he wouldn't see any contradictions?" Perfect! We invited him to read the Introduction to the BOM and then told him if he wanted to go on, by all means, he was sure welcome. He asked where a good place would be to start if he did go on (real intent!!). Man, I am so impressed with him! And with James. He is so missionary minded! He is definitely a great strength to Colton progressing. We're meeting with him again tonight after mutual. He's being integrated into the ward without us even having to do anything. Yay! I love when miracles happen!

Yesterday was zone conference. Man, it was amazing! I love zone conferences! They are such a spiritual boost! They used to be once a transfer (every 6 weeks), but now they're every 3 months. :( I'm sad about that. We received excellent training on extending commitments, obedience, and the BOM from our zone leaders, assistants, and Pres. Collins. I really learned a lot and the Spirit was really there to motivate me to be better. There's so many things I can be doing better. I'm grateful for inspired leaders who give trainings on the basics so that I know where to start.

Last night we stopped by Sister Boonstra to tell her a late happy birthday and take her some cookies. As we were talking, she told us that she would come to church this Sunday. Yay! It's been about 3-4 years since she's been. I really hope she makes it. She really needs it in her life.

Because of being grounded and S. Mat being sick, I've had the chance to do a lot of studying. I've started an early morning study of the BOM that has really transformed that book for me. I love it. I'm learning so much this time through. I also started to read LeGrand Richards' book "A Marvelous Work & a Wonder". It's so awesome! I love to study. I sure do love to sleep, but it's been worth getting up a bit earlier to be able to have some extra time with the Spirit.

It's frigid cold here. I kind of wish it'd snow a bit more because it'd warm up some. Well, take care all!

sister humpherys

sweatpants: a sister missionary's best wintertime friend

2011-01-31T09:31:00.001-07:00

Hello all! Since we don't get the news, we depend on other people to give us the weather reports. It's been interesting to hear the different tales of how big this snow storm will be tomorrow. It started out being 3 inches, and it's been exaggerated all the way up to 18 inches. Last time we heard that a big storm was coming, we got nothing. So, it'll be interesting to see what we get.

We got to see Melody 3 times this week. We started the stop smoking program with her and she was all excited for it. Unfortunately, family drama got in the way and she had a setback. :( She's got a strong desire given the perfect conditions. But when bumps in the road come along, her willpower is shaken. S. Mat taught me a lesson during a teaching appointment with another investigator: the real test is how we do in the turbulent times, not the utopia that never comes. I feel for her with the situations she's dealing with regarding her adult children. But I just don't know what it's going to take for her to have the follow through that she needs to quit smoking once and for all, regardless of outside circumstances. She says she realizes the urgency in being baptized, but that doesn't motivate her to action yet. It's the difference between belief and faith: belief does not carry with it the same moral responsibility to act as faith does.

We taught Keisha on Tuesday. We talked about what goals she has spiritually and temporally and talked about how this gospel will help her to achieve all of those goals. Keisha knows the right answers of going to church, reading, and praying, but she has little to no motivation to act. She is really nice and helps a lot of her family members out. She says she wants to come closer to God, yet there's no follow through. :( It's so sad seeing that some people are so close yet so far. The gospel is so easy. Yes it takes work, but the outcome is far greater than the input. I wish I could help people just realize that! We taught 2 of her kids on Thursday. Boy, they are some of the rowdiest kids I've ever seen. Amazingly we were able to teach about the structure of the church of Jesus Christ (apostles, the gospel, commandments, and Jesus Christ at the top) and they were able to repeat some things back to us. Who knows if they'll remember it this week or not. They didn't come to church again this week. :( They said they were coming but in the morning they bailed again. Lack of motivation frustrates me.

Tuesday we had dinner and a lesson with Colton at the Schulte's home. It was great! Colton is awesome! He saw the need for a prophet because of the state of the world. We totally rocked his world by telling him there was a prophet on the earth today. Well, it was better because his friend James explained and testified about it. Mike also participated a lot in the lesson. He's getting ready to leave for his mission to Belgium. We were able to teach most of the Restoration lesson, including a commitment to baptism!! He readily accepted and had a huge smile on his face when he did accept. :) Oh I just love that kid. The lesson was awesome, and the Spirit was there. He told us he didn't know if he'd ever really felt the Spirit, so that will be the topic of our next lesson. Sadly he didn't come to church Sunday because he had promised a friend he'd spend time with him. Grr. James has a class with him at school, so he sees him every day which is good. Daily contact from missionaries is great, but better from members.

We had a lesson with Michael out on his front steps in the cold because we couldn't find a sister to come with us. We taught him about the pre-earth life, creation, Adam & Eve, and our purpose in life. He had never thought about a pre-earth life before. The things we taught seemed to make sense to him and he seemed to agree. He brought up needing to come to church, and he did come! YAY! He's not reading in the BOM yet though, so we'll need to help him with that. He's a good guy. I wonder about his level of motivation to change as well, but at least he's making progress in that he came to church and he's keeping appointments with us!

Jeanette's life is a mess. Her live-in fiance just had a stroke. She feels evil influences in her house, her unemployment runs out in 2 weeks. Her 16 year old son just got out of jail. And she's trying to go to school. She's turning to the BOM for some sort of comfort and relief. That's so awesome! She's read over and over again the verses we left her in Mosiah 24 about the people's burdens being eased. She doesn't even know fully what the BOM is, but she trusts it enough to turn to it in this time of trial. She wants specific passages to read that will help her through things. Hopefully we can help her to see that no matter what passage she reads, the Spirit will be there to calm her and give her the peace she needs. It's neat to see her trust in the BOM. Hopefully all this stress will help her to see just how much she needs to rely on Jesus Christ and His gospel and that she will be less flaky with our appointments.

We met with Deven again Thursday night. He had done his reading assignments! What was even better was that when we discussed them, he was able to relate them to what we taught him about Joseph Smith. My favorite thing he said was after reading Numbers 12:6, he said "so that means Joseph Smith was a prophet because he saw God". I am quite impressed with him at such a young age (11). We talked more about how to recognize answers to his prayers and how we feel the Spirit. The other times we've visited them, Deven and his brothers have been wild and crazy and it's hard to keep their attention (or get their attention to begin with). But this time, when we got there, he was sitting on the couch with his scriptures ready to go, and there were no distractions. It was awesome! He came to church again Sunday. It's amazing his desire. He's the only one that comes, and he comes every week. I wish he could teach some of our other investigators how to get to church every week!

Sister Healton came with us again to visit with Mike. We were running late, and we were afraid that he might have given up on us and gone home (we meet at the library). We got there and he wasn't there. It was about 15 minutes after our scheduled appointment. But then he showed up. He had some things to take care of and so he was running late and he was praying that we wouldn't leave before he got there. Both our prayers were answered and we were able to meet with him. We talked about meaningful prayer and recognizing answers. S. Healton shared her experience with losing so much weight and how it was a matter of much prayer and it took a number of years. I learned a little about how Mike's brain works while S. Healton shared her story. Mike would interject factual questions that were not needed for the concept to get across. But that's how his brain works and unless those facts are given, he's stuck on that. We'll keep that in mind when we teach him. Mike then opened up and shared some things about his past leading to some nervous breakdowns. He shared that his 2nd wife was a Mormon (though it sounded like a less active). He met the missionaries shortly after high school (he's 69 now). His first wife wasn't too happy about it. He had a baptism date, but then he talked to his pastor, and he gave him an anti-Mormon book and that "really taught him about the Mormons". Sister Healton caught him though when she asked him if he checked out the credibility and truthfulness of the book. He had no response. I can't figure out why he's meeting with us and why he's coming to church. He says he wants to learn what God wants him to do. He says he's trying to have an open mind about things. His mind and heart are quite hardened and closed against anything contrary to his current beliefs though. We brought the lesson back to prayer and S. Mat extended the commitment to take some time before and after each prayer to ponder what he would say and then listen for what God would say. Mike said he felt uncomfortable doing that because he doesn't believe what we teach is true. In his mind, we had an ulterior motive for extending this commitment. I had to explain to him the purpose was simply to help him have more meaningful prayers and recognize answers that come. S. Mat then again extended the commitment. He said he'd try, but we all know that that answer means "no". We explained to him that we don't expect perfection, but we've learned that when people say they'll try rather than they'll do it, it implies an admission/expectation of failure from the beginning. Saying "yes" gives more motivation to accomplishing the commitment than saying "I'll try". Mike then said because we explained it that way, that he would accept the commitment. Yay! Something finally got through to him! He came to church again. The lesson was on the creation. He again piped up and asked for scriptural references that we were spirit children before coming here to earth. Our poor gospel principles teacher. He doesn't quite know how to handle Mike. He tends to dig himself in a hole and allows Mike to take the lesson off on a tangent. (That's one thing Brother Mills was really good at in Lafayette. Steve would ask crazy questions that were unrelated or he'd give a crazy comment and Br. Mills knew how to handle it appropriately or ignore it.) Mike stayed for the linger longer afterwards and he talked with some of the members. One member mentioned endowments to him. Agh! I hate it when members do that! I'm glad that people were talking to him, but then Mike had questions for us about the temple, and it led to another mess. Note to members: stick to the basics!

We were able to see Eric finally on Saturday. We only got to talk for about 20 minutes, but we shared with him what we offer and invited him to investigate and he agreed. We promised him that this gospel will bring him pure happiness, and he said that's what he's looking for right now. Yay!

Bishop asked us to teach the combined Priesthood and Relief Society meeting yesterday and asked us to talk about Preach My Gospel. It was hard to solidify our thoughts and ideas and find how to make them mesh together, but we were able to give the presentation. It didn't go as well as we would've liked, but it went. It was so sad though as I asked for a show of hands as to who had a PMG in their home. Just about everyone raised their hand. However, NON of those hands stayed up when we asked who uses their PMG. Oh, my heart just sank! PMG is a GOLD MINE for personal study. If they only knew what they were missing! So, that's what I decided our member lessons/dinner appointments will be about - getting them into PMG. Member missionary work is mostly at a standstill right now - except for with the youth - and that's why. We're going to work to put an end to that! I hope I'm here long enough to see that change happen. Another note to members: get a PMG and use it!

We finally contacted a potential named Angie yesterday. The sisters had tracted into her and she said she had a BOM already. We sat and talked with her and she said sisters came by about 6 years ago and that's where she got the BOM. We got to know her religious background a bit and then S. Mat asked her if she thought the true church of God was on the earth. Angie honestly said she'd never thought about it. As we talked she said that if there was a true church, she'd want to know and she obviously would attend it, but she didn't know how to go about finding out if there is a true church and if so, which one it is. We testified to her that we are the true church of Jesus Christ and that we were here to teach her about it and to help her develop the personal revelation line with God so that she can know for herself that this is true. We invited her to investigate, and she accepted. Yay!

Well, that's it for this week's happenings. Though I do need to write about 2 other things I keep forgetting about.

Paul (in Fishers) wrote me a letter a few weeks back and informed me that he'd gone to do baptisms from the dead for his family. He was able to have about 8 names male and female done. Man, just reading that brought tears to my eyes. This gospel is so amazing! He is so strong!

Friday before last fast Sunday, President Collins' car was broken into and his briefcase was stolen. It had sensitive information about the mission and missionaries, keys to all the church buildings, basically President Collins' life was in there. Saturday night all the missionaries were notified by the assistants and we were asked to fast for the recovery of the briefcase. Sunday evening, a lady saw a set of scriptures on the ground outside an ATM and thought that it wasn't right for them to be on the ground. She walked over and saw an open briefcase next to them and assumed they went together. She looked inside and found a missionary phone number and called and was redirected to Pres. Collins. What a miracle. In addition, the only thing missing from the briefcase was a bottle of Ibuprofen. Wow. What a testimony builder! That'll teach you not to mess with about 150 missionaries on fast Sunday! :)

Take care all!

sister humpherys

i love my mission

2011-01-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

Kokomo, Kokomo. It's an interesting area here. It's different than all my other areas. I think back to Bro. Mills' blessing often. In it, I was blessed to be able to recognize the strengths of the members, and that I would remember the worth of souls, both of members and non-members. I remember that and it helps me to love these people with everything I've got. The ward here is small, but it is loving. I'm still trying to get to know people. The economic status of people here in Kokomo is not the best, and that leads to people (potentials, investigators) not being as committed to meeting with us. It's been hard having few people to visit.

Thursday we saw the Engles. The sisters have visited them about 5-6 times now. Again, we committed them to come to church. Sunday morning, as we sped out of the parking lot to pick up Deven last minute, we saw the Engles coming to church! Sister Healton (our ride) told us they've been gone for about 20 years at least. Wow! After sacrament meeting, there were lots of old timers who remembered them and welcomed them warmly. Sister Engle wasn't feeling too well, so they only stayed for sacrament, but they said they planned on coming back next week! What a miracle!

We saw Ethan Thursday afternoon. He's the 10 year old grandson of Melody. We reviewed with him the establishment of Christ's church using the apostasy/restoration cup lesson. He enjoyed it, and he learned a lot. Melody told us he hasn't been praying lately, so we talked about how important each cup is in the church, and in our testimony. We told him to remove the cup that said "pray often" and see what that did to our pyramid. He saw just how important praying is. We committed him to pray often, and he agreed. He said the closing prayer and it was an awesome prayer. It was more than just a child's sweet little prayer. It was like a seasoned veteran's prayer. :)
Melody has been suffering from surgery on her toes. She found out the nurse wrapped the bandages too tight, and that caused excess pain. She's starting to get better now. But because of that, we haven't been able to start the stop smoking program with her yet. We plan to start it with her tonight.

Thursday night we stopped in to see Deven, an 11 year old investigator from a part-member family. His stepmom is kind of against the church. We brought up meeting with Deven more regularly (once a week) and she brought up his concerns about him being vulnerable (though I would choose "impressionable" instead) and not wanting him to just go with the flow. It actually turned out really good because we're holding him more accountable now for reading and praying, and doing the things he needs to do so that it truly is his progression. Deven's a good kid. Hopefully his example will help get Br. Hanson back to church and soften his stepmom's heart.

Friday we met with Mike again with Sister Healton. It was great to have her with us. Just the fact that she's not a youngster like us helped Mike. We had planned to talk about the importance and role of the BOM. Mike gets sidetracked at times by details that really don't matter (such as a seeming grammatical error in the gospel principles book), and it's frustrating at times. And he also says things such as "well that's what you believe" that also make it frustrating. As the discussion got sidetracked to the 2nd Coming and heaven and hell, I got kind of irritated. I thought about how I could bring it back to the BOM. I felt the need to be bold/firm with Mike. I tried to reign in my natural tendency to just go off on him and rebuke him. I then opened my mouth and boldly shared my testimony and the need for him to have an open heart and mind so that the Spirit can talk to him. I did feel the Spirit confirm to me about being bold, but I may have had a little much of the tone of rebuking. I think it took him off guard a little. He did commit to begin reading the BOM and to try to have a fresh perspective about it. Sister Healton was awesome and told him he would need to put the same effort, energy, and love into the BOM as he had done with the Bible if he was going to come to know that it was true. S. Mat and I talked about the lesson afterwards. She was not so pleased with my boldness and said I needed to love Mike more. I agree, that probably my tone and words were partly motivated by frustration, but I do know there was an element of love in there, otherwise I wouldn't have cared. Mike's an interesting character. I really do want to help him find what he's looking for. I hope he'll let us help him.

Saturday we were able to meet with Keisha finally. We had a good lesson with Sister Jones about the need for Jesus Christ and faith in Him. Her house is very chaotic with kids running around everywhere, so it was kind of hard at times to focus on the lesson. Keisha seems nice, but she's quite passive. She's cancelled or missed a few appointments with us, and she's bailed last minute on church the last 2 weeks. She doesn't seem motivated to do anything with this message that we share. We set up a standing return appointment, so we'll see what happens if she keeps those.

Keisha's attitude is quite commonplace here in Kokomo. If we catch them at home, sure we can come in and talk, but they're not motivated to do anything, and they miss appointments. It really got S. Mat down Saturday since appointments kept falling through. It's hard when we have so few people to teach and then those people don't show up. We talked a bit and we discussed possibly dropping everyone except Deven, Melody & Ethan. It seems scary to wipe out our teaching pool, but that gives God more room to work miracles. I didn't want to sound heartless, but after meeting the investigators that I have, I felt that they weren't really the elect that we should be spending our time with. I decided to give them a chance though to see if miracles would happen with them. But I do feel that we should go out and find others. Yay for tracting in freezing temperatures.

Sunday we were blessed with a miracle. James brought his friend Colton to church (both sophomores). We met with him afterwards, and he's awesome! He said he doesn't really live a Christian life right now, though he is Christian, but he knows he needs to change and live his life for God. We explained what we do and invited him to investigate, letting him know upfront that that would entail keeping commitments and a spiritual journey of becoming. He excitedly hopped on board! We're having dinner with the Schulte's tomorrow night, and James invited Colton for dinner and then a lesson afterwards. He is awesome! And James is awesome! He's such a good example. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to teach Colton. What a miracle that the Lord blessed us with!

I think I finally learned my lesson - Saturday night I need to read the Sunday School lessons. Bishop asked us 10 minutes before class started if we would teach the lesson. Luckily it was on agency - a topic we study often - rather than the scattering/gathering of Israel or the Millennium like the last times I've had to teach.

Trials are beginning to come to S. Mat and I now. It's mostly just an issue of communicating. Not that we don't communicate, we just communicate things differently and have a different way of doing things. So what I see sometimes as a lack of communication, S. Mat really is communicating in a different way. We're working at it. I'm really learning to be humble this transfer. It's nice to be able to learn such a hard lesson with a companion that I love and adore. She makes me want to be better. She's also teaching me how to relax and have fun and not be so rigid. Anyone who can teach me that lesson deserves an award! :)

Well, that's all for this week. Hope all is well back home. Send some warmer weather my way!

sister humpherys.

beach boys

2011-01-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

PICTURE: me and S. Mat wearing matching hats and scarfs that Shana made!

"Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama... to Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go.... way down to KOKOMO!!"
I am here in Kokomo with my favorite sister in the whole wide world - Sister Mat! Oh, it's been great! We have so many differences, yet so much in common, and it's turning out nicely. I'm really excited for this time of my mission. The ward is very nice here, though it's small - only about 20 in Relief Society. Sunday, Bishop Marler introduced me to the PEC as the missionary they had been praying for. (I ate at his house when I came here on exchanges in November and they fell in love with me.) It was quite the compliment - I hope I can live up to that!

Well, backtracking a little, this week was crazy! Transfer calls came Monday morning - I was told I was leaving and S. Latu would train. I knew it. I knew that I would leave and she would train like 3 months ago. I didn't really feel like I connected with the people or the area that well, so it wasn't too hard to say goodbye. Tuesday we found out transfer meeting was postponed from Wednesday to Friday because of weather. Then Wednesday we found out that it would be Thursday. Wednesday at 5:30pm we found out that S. Latu would also be leaving and 2 different sisters would be double transferred in to Lafayette. CRAZY!! Goodness, it was a whirlwind from 5:30 Wednesday until we were on the road to transfer meeting at 8 am Thursday morning.

(In Lafayette) I got to visit with Linda once more. I was able to bear my testimony to her one last time and encourage her that though she doesn't feel like she's receiving any answers, the Lord is proving her and opening a place in her heart for His answer to come. I testified to her of the importance of having a correct, solid foundation and that if we don't, we can only get so far before we have to tear down and rebuild. That's a really important lesson that I learned from my time in Lafayette. She again told me that I just seemed to have this glow about me and told me I was the most put together person she knew. Wow. It's nice sometimes for other people to point out what they see in us when we're too hard on ourselves to see it.

We met with Destiny and Br. Ruby one last time as well. We had planned on talking about Christ's earthly ministry, but S. Latu switched it up on me. It kind of threw me for a loop, but the way the lesson went actually lined up perfectly with thoughts that I'd had that morning about faith in Jesus Christ. Both of them have a strong faith in God, but their faith in Jesus Christ is lacking. We were able to testify to them of the importance of faith in Jesus Christ. As we taught, it re-affirmed my testimony of the need for Jesus Christ and just how important He is in my individual life. Oh I love teaching the gospel! I learn so much!

We went over Lehi's dream with Br. Workman. We asked him to choose a parable to discuss, and he asked if there were any in the BOM, and his wife suggested Lehi's dream. We had a really good discussion at the Asay's home, and they were really good fellowshippers. Members sure do make a difference! Br. Workman is waiting for his answer. I think he's just dragging his feet. Obviously he doesn't have a way strong testimony yet, but I do see that he has that seed of testimony. I hope he acts on it before it gets snatched up by the birds (see Matt 13).

We taught Laura about enduring to the end. She is so awesome! She is still feeling like a baptism in March is what will happen. As we discussed enduring to the end, she shared that these things are things that she WANTS to do, not things she feels that she has to do. She is truly so prepared for this gospel! It's been amazing to see the progress that she's made. And she's slowly helping her husband to come back to the church. That will probably take a long time, but the seeds are being planted.

We began to teach Krystal about Christ's earthly ministry and the establishment of His Church in that time. She has no real knowledge of religion or Christian beliefs. It's kind of nice to work with a clean slate, but also somewhat challenging to start from the very bottom and work up. We shared with her the "cup lesson" and she was able to see the importance of each layer - apostles, commandments, gospel of Jesus Christ, and Christ Himself - in order to keep the organization strong. It'll take some time for her to be ready for baptism, but she's on her way as long as she keeps on this path.

Wednesday night we went to Br. Mills' house (ward mission leader) to give him all the info he needed so that the work would continue seamlessly with the new sisters. S. Latu then asked him for a blessing, and I took him up on that as well. The blessing was amazing. The Spirit was so strong. In it I was promised (among other things) that I would be able to know the needs of my companion, the area, and the investigators, and that I would be able to reach people who could never be reached before, and that miracles would happen, and the area would be blessed with baptisms. Man, it was a very powerful blessing! I was so excited to get to my new area and get started!

Transfer meeting Thursday was good. We got 20 new missionaries, so it was a lot of change! As S. Latu was on the stand because of training, and since S. Mat is my favorite, we were sitting next to each other. I had a strong feeling that I was going to Kokomo with S. Mat since Monday. Pres. announced S. Mat's name and she stood up, and it took her a good 5 seconds after he announced my name to compute that I was her new companion. She's a bucket full of energy, so you can just imagine her reaction when she realized I was right next to her. I got barrelled over basically. :) During those 5 seconds, I was just waiting for her to make the realization. I saw the assignment coming, so it didn't surprise me, but it sure did surprise her. Oh, I love my S. Mat! Another surprise came after transfer meeting - Sister Norton dropped in to see me! She heard I was going to be there, so she came to say hello. Oh I love her so much!

Thursday night we had dinner with Bishop Marler. Mama Marler welcomed me "home". She said she too had a feeling that I was coming. Oh, it's great to be here! The Marler's are awesome, and so is Mama Marler's cooking! :)

Friday we met with Mike. We were going to give him a drop lesson. We talked about real intent and discussed a bit about Matt. 13:44. (I love that parable!) He's got a strong background in Christian ministry. He studied with missionaries back in the '60s and was going to be baptized, but then he got antied. He is 7th Day Adventist. We asked why he started meeting with us again. He said he's looking for what God wants him to do. He has some element of real intent, so we decided not to drop him yet. (And he came to church Sunday!) The problem is, well, #1, he's an intellectual. He wants proof. But more than that, he's willing to jump if God says jump, but he doesn't believe that God will say jump. So that's kind of blocking the pipeline for him to receive his answer.

We met with Melody later. She's excommunicated or something (I don't know the situation). She's got a strong testimony, she just can't quit smoking. As we were sitting there talking (about something unrelated), the Spirit bascially started screaming at me. I felt the Spirit through chills, heart pounding, excitement, you name it, it was all there. So I told her I was going to change the subject and speak very directly to her because the Lord wanted her to know something. I very strongly told her that the Lord wanted her to quit smoking NOW and set a baptism date and there was a high sense of urgency in the matter. Man, I was shaking. I've never felt the Spirit SO STRONG on my mission before. I was truly being used as an instrument. Then a miracle happened. Melody agreed on the sense of urgency, and she mentioned a 15 step stop smoking program that had worked for her before and she couldn't find it or anyone who knew about it. THANK YOU TRACI FOR SENDING ME THAT PROGRAM LAST YEAR! Already, I've seen one reason why I'm here. Melody was very excited that I had a copy of the program. We met with her again Saturday to prepare her to start the program. We're going to start it with her this week. Then, in 7 days, she'll be smoke free.

We dropped in to see the Buttermores Friday night. Ron is really funny, and right away I was able to fit in with his personality and click with him. He's just a big goof, and Judi is such a sweetheart. Sadly, when we went to our appointment with them Sunday night, Ron dropped us. :( :( He said he just doesn't see himself changing and he didn't want to waste our time. Judi wasn't home but called us later and asked if we could come over one more time. Ron had asked us some questions Friday, so we decided to go and have one more lesson. It was hard to say goodbye to them - and I only just met them! S. Mat took it harder as she's come to love them so much. They will receive the gospel at some point. They just need more time and more understanding.

We stopped in to see Sister Boonstra, a less active. We talked about repentance, and she brought up that she doesn't do anything big, just small things that aren't a big deal. I was able to be sweetly bold with her and tell her that to God, there are no small things, they are all big things because they pull us away from Him. I don't know if it fully sunk in, but she at least got some of it. That's one of the blessings of being the new missionary in town - I can be as bold as I need to be. :)

I'm still trying to learn the area and the people. S. Mat has only been here 3 months, so she's still kind of learning too. It's been so great so far though. I'm really excited for the miracles the Lord has promised as we are diligently obedient. We've got some investigators, and I've only met a few. The work is about to move forward even faster now! I'm excited for this area, and for this time of my mission. I'm really grateful to be serving alongside S. Mat at this time. She is awesome!

Again, I'm drawn back to the lessons I learned while in Lafayette. AGAIN, I learn more from Pres. Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most". I realized that during my 3 months in Lafayette, the Lord was helping me to focus on the basics (on survival in his terms), so that I could grow more now. I remember first hearing the talk in conference, and it impacted me a lot and I felt that the talk was just for me. I had no idea just how much that talk would be a key in my life.

I'm really seeing that my time with S. Latu, I was like an apprentice. She was really training me. I see myself now doing things that I learned from her, that I wasn't able to do in Lafayette. I was so antsy to do, do, do in Lafayette because I didn't realize at the time that the Lord wanted me to learn, learn, learn. And that S. Latu was providing that example for me to be able to follow. My time in Lafayette was a crucial time in my mission, and a crucial time in my life. I'm grateful that I was able to finally open my eyes and see what the Lord intended for me.

Well, hopefully by next week I'll know the area and the people a little better, and be prepared for more miracles!

sister smurf

onward

2011-01-10T10:51:00.001-07:00

The time has come. I'm getting transferred on Wednesday. On to my 4th area. S. Latu is training one of the new missionaries. I saw this coming - her training and me leaving - for like at least 9 weeks. It doesn't really make it easy though. I haven't gotten nearly as attached to the people here as I did in Fishers, and that's been hard on me, but I'm still sad to leave. This is a great area, with lots of work. Hopefully I'll get to come back soon, as at least 2 investigators will be ready for baptism in February.

These two transfers have not been easy. The Lord worked hard to humble me. I've learned a lot these 3 months here with S. Latu. I wish I wouldn't have been so hard headed so I could've learned them quicker, but such is life. I've learned so many things, I can't even try to enumerate all of them, but the most important lesson I've learned is the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not only the need for it, but the availability and power of it. Everything these 2 transfers has been breaking down my barriers and my pride to teach me and help me desire to make room for the Savior in my life personally. It's been a tornado. This growing process is sure heart-wrenching! A lot of times I felt that S. Latu was leaving me hanging, but looking back, I see that everything she did/didn't do was necessary for me to learn the things I've learned. The Lord sure knows what He's doing. I've learned that I need to trust Him more when He sows trials in my life. I couldn't have learned these lessons from any other companion, and I couldn't have learned them in any other way. I wanted these 2 transfers to go differently, and I still have a tinge of regret for things not going "better". But really, this is what God wanted, and it's what I needed. Had things gone the way I wanted, I would not have grown. I would still be the same distance away from my Savior. I hope that through the days and years I can remember that rather than my foolish expectations not being met. I still have a lot to learn from this time of trial and progression. Hopefully it will all sink in soon and that I'll be able to apply these things in my life. I remember writing towards the beginning of last transfer that I was certain this time with S. Latu was going to be the best, because of the growth that would come. I didn't really understand at that time how the growth was going to come. But it sure did come (it's still in the works). I wish I had more time to ponder and reflect on these things.

Tuesday I went on an exchange with Sister Summers and Sister Esplin went with Sister Latu. All 4 of us worked here in Lafayette. Going with Sister Summers was just what I needed. I was able to talk with her a lot about things going on in my mind and things I was struggling with. Talking through things with an "outsider" was very therapeutic for me. And it was great to be with Sister Summers again. We had our difficulties while serving together and I was grateful for the chance to kind of make amends. We talked a lot about things that happened while we were together, and we were able to see how each of us has learned and grown since then.

Tuesday we met with Laurence. He just finished 1 Nephi! He said he didn't really understand the Isaiah chapters, but he read them a few times. He pushed through. He'll need that perseverance to get through 2 Nephi. :) We taught him the principle of keeping the sabbath day holy, and it was great to see him be able to apply the principle into his own life, rather than giving him a list of do's and don't's. On Saturday, we wrapped up talking about the gift of the Holy Ghost by explaining the gift vs. power of the Holy Ghost. As we talked, he stopped us after a bit and said that his sister is going through a really hard time and he had planned on talking to her later that day. He said he felt that he needed to talk to her about what we'd been sharing. Right on! He is so ready for this gospel! He set Feb. 7th as the day to quit smoking. We encouraged him to pray about it and see if that's what the Lord wants. He's down to 3 or less cigarettes a day - he can quit faster if he wants. That smoking is the only thing standing in between him and baptism. Oh, wait, I lied. There is one other potential thing from an incident awhile back that still isn't cleaned up. If the case doesn't get thrown out, he'll be on probation for a time. Hopefully it gets thrown out! I guess we'll have to wait and see though what the Lord wants.

We met with Krystal and her husband Paul twice this week. S. Summers and I taught about prayer and recognizing the Holy Ghost and answers to prayers. It was a good lesson and Krystal said she felt she understood more about prayer and would soon be comfortable praying in front of people. S. Summers asked her the things she would tell God and she listed them off. S. Summers then said that she basically had just prayed. Krystal at first got upset that she had "tricked" her into praying, but then she realized that the purpose was to show her that it's not that hard. Friday we talked about the importance of families and the Law of Chastity. She had asked how God viewed her family since they had Hannah before they were married. We were able to allay (I think that's the right word) some of her fears about God being mad at her. It was a great lesson.

We met with Destiny and talked about the principle of faith. I felt kind of a disconnect a little bit. She knows too much for her own good, but I think she hasn't let it affect her personally. She understands faith, but not necessarily faith in Jesus Christ. And that's her biggest stumbling block. If she can learn and apply that, she'll be on fire.

We met with Br. Workman that night and Br. Baer came along with us. We chose to discuss Matt. 13:44-46. Man, I have never learned so much from just 3 verses. We spent the majority of the time discussing verse 44 and its applications. There is SO MUCH to learn there! I learned a lot during the lesson, and since that lesson, a lot of things have come up that have pointed me back to the things I learned from that parable. Probably the biggest thing I learned was from a question Br. Workman brought up. He asked just what was 100%, or all that you have. He brought up that if you're watching tv, well you could be reading your scriptures, so how do you know what is 100%? The discussion that followed was very enlightening. We talked about how sometimes the Lord wants us to learn, so he requires us to study. Other times, he wants us to go apply, so we don't spend as much time studying because we go out and apply. These two times look very different, but each one is giving 100%. That's been a good lens for me to look at these two transfers through because the things I've done have been different than before, and I felt at first that I wasn't giving 100%. Our 100% is very individual, and it's something that can change from day to day. Man, I love that parable now.

We got to see Latasha again on Wednesday. She's finally back from Christmas break. We had a great lesson on the Church in former times and the Church today using the cup lesson. We shared a lot, but she was able to begin to soak it in. She had some really good questions about why it's important for her to know about Pres. Monson and how does the prophet get called. We met with her Friday as well, and Calvin was there, as well as his sister Shinetha. We reviewed the cup lesson by having Latasha explain and build. They were all excited to learn and the visual was great. Calvin knows too much for his own good, so he's not totally on board, but he said he'd have to read more of our stuff and learn for himself. Their excitement to learn is awesome. Shinetha said she'd be there for sure for our next appointment. Sister Henderson lives above them and she's been to all but one of the lessons. She invited them to church as well as to Sunday dinner. They accepted the dinner for sure, we'll have to see about church. Go members!

S. Latu and Esplin taught Laura on Tuesday about baptism, and the lesson went really well. Laura said the thing keeping her from baptism is that she wants to go to church more (she's missed the last while). Our lesson on Saturday was awesome. We taught about the gift of the Holy Ghost vs. the power of the Holy Ghost. She's felt the Holy Ghost a lot and we asked her to imagine what the gift of the Holy Ghost would be like. She said she couldn't even imagine how awesome it'd be. We then talked about the blessings she is in need of and how those are available to her through baptism and the Holy Ghost. That really hit her. We again asked her what's keeping her from receiving these blessings, and again she brought up church. She said that she feels that Feb. or Mar. would be good for baptism. We reminded her that the requirement is 3 Sundays in a row and that we knew she was ready once she did that. We encouraged her to pray to find out what Heavenly Father wanted. If He wants Feb. or Mar. that's great. We want her to be comfortable with the date and for it to be her date, not ours. She is doing so awesome! She came to church Sunday.

Man, I keep thinking about all the things I've learned during my time here. I've learned a lot about things I've struggled with for a really long time (pre-mission even). I hope that I can really implement these things and make them a part of me. I know these 3 months have impacted the rest of my mission and the rest of my life.

sister smurf

something witty goes here

2011-01-03T10:37:00.001-07:00

The holidays are over. It does make missionary work easier. Though we were really blessed during the holidays and the work didn't slow down too much. Some of our investigators left town, but we were able to fill the time with visiting less actives or other productive things. I'm excited to meet back with those who left for the holidays. Hopefully the time gap didn't weaken their desire.

Laurence is still awesome. We had a great lesson on baptism on Tuesday. We spent time discussing what an ordinance and covenant are, and the importance of the Priesthood authority. We asked what was standing in between him and baptism, and he told us he has some questions he'd like answered. Basically he wants to know the "fine print" so he knows what he's getting himself into. We acknowledged his desire, and then we touched on the difference between knowing in your head, and knowing in your heart, and that the latter is what qualifies one for baptism. He then shocked us all by telling us he felt he already had the knowledge in his heart! Man, he's really been prepared to receive this gospel. Saturday we had dinner and a lesson with him at the Svedin's house. We talked about the gift of the Holy Ghost. Laurence is very sincere, and he says he wants to be 100% there and committed to keeping that covenant with God. We've talked before about repentance and how we all break the covenant, but that didn't seem to satisfy him. Sister Svedin shared a sweet testimony about the sacrament, and that's what did it for him. We could feel this sense of relief as it finally sunk in that he doesn't have to be perfect, just willing to try. He asked about the baptism service - he's thinking about it! He is well on his way there. We shared before with him about the Word of Wisdom, but it didn't click that he had to quit smoking before baptism. We went over D&C 20:37 with him, and the only qualification he is lacking is being smoke-free. That was also a relief to him that he meets those qualifications that the Lord has set. He's been trying to hold himself to higher standards, and with those, he'd never be ready in his mind. He said he feels it (baptism) coming, and he's excited. He's down to 0-3 cigarettes a day, and we committed him to pray for a day that he would be smoke-free and a day to be baptized in February. At church Sunday, we didn't see Laurence. During the opening song I checked the phone, and he had left a message. S. Latu went out to check it (since I had to say the prayer). It turns out that his car ran out of gas about a mile from the church. So he started walking. He called to tell us he was on his way but would be late. He made it there before the sacrament. Afterwards he told us that 4 people stopped to check if he needed help, and one nice family on their way to another church, picked him up and dropped him off at our church. What great blessings! The Lord truly does provide a way if we're willing!

We finally met with Linda again, after her and her husband being so sick. We sensed her frustration in not getting anywhere even after a year of study with the Mormons. We decided to share Pres. Uchtdorf's talk and the "good, better, best" principle. She looked into it too much and kinda over-analyzed it. But her reaction was her applying the principle we were trying to teach. She told us she needed to get back to reading and discussing the BOM. That's her foundation. That's awesome. The problem is, she's reading and studying the BOM to learn about the people and why they thought/believed that way, rather than reading to learn about Jesus Christ and His gospel. Hmm. She's a tough cookie.

During Christmas time, we participated in Christmas Jubilee. Churches in the community provide gifts and set up a "store" for less-fortunate people to come and "shop" (for free) for gifts for their children. S. Latu and I hosted a mom named Krystal and helped her pick things out and wrap them. We dropped in to see her this week and began teaching her. She has little to no knowledge of the Bible or main characters such as Moses, Noah, etc. We taught her a little about God and then some about prayer. She's never prayed out loud before. He's so humble and open when she doesn't understand something. I feel the gospel can really bless her life if she'll take it. We went back Friday and watched Joy to the World with her. She didn't understand what a prophet was, so we tried to explain and teach her. Even that was a bit above her comprehension level. She kind of grasped the idea, but we have to go to the very basics with her. I'm excited to start teaching her more and see the light of the gospel take root.

Laura is still doing well, though she hasn't been to church in a while. We taught her about faith on Wednesday and repentance on Thursday. She has progressed so much since we first started meeting with her. She's getting answers to her questions. She's understanding what she reads. She's receiving revelation. She's so excited to share with us things she learned from the BOM or from her pondering. We asked her about the growth of her faith, and her eyes just lit up. Oh, she's growing so much! She told us that she's understanding the things we teach better, in addition to understanding the BOM more. She won't make the Jan 8th baptism date, but at her rate of progression, I can see her getting baptized this month or early February. She's so in tune with the Spirit and wants to learn.

We also met with Destiny Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday we shared the story Hands Against the Rock. She began to apply that story to her own life. She shared with us her application, and it even went beyond the things S. Latu and I had come up with. We then shared a tree analogy - we're frail trees that bend in the wind, so much so that our leaves get dirty in the mud. The repentance process is not just to clean our leaves, but to strengthen us so that we don't bend so much next time. That brought out that she has a narrow conception of repentance. Her view is centered on the apologizing, rather than on turning our hearts and will to God. It was a nice intro to our Thursday lesson on repentance. Her in-laws joined us via Skype. It was interesting. It was kind of distracting, and we had to talk louder than normal so they could hear us. I think it would work better if it was the investigator (rather than the member) that we talk to through Skype. But her mother-in-law was able to share some pretty insightful comments about repentance. I don't think Destiny was able to fully grasp the full meaning of repentance, but at least one important thing was learned. I shared with her an example from teaching physics: In physics, there are a bajillion different kinds of problems. My students wanted a step-by-step for each type of problem. That's ridiculous, and impossible, so we teach principles that can then be applied to any type of problem. Without learning the principles and concepts, when faced with a new problem, we get stuck. Destiny was able to realize that she was wanting specific instructions for each type of situation, rather than learning principles. So now she's excited to learn principles. Hallelujah! Hopefully we can get somewhere with that now! :)

We met with Br. Workman again and taught the parable of the 4 soils. We were able to pull a lot from it, most notably that Christ focused a lot on the not good ground so that we can problem solve and figure out why our ground isn't good and then we can fix it. I really like the Workmans, and they love having us, and they come to church often. But I don't see him feeling a need for this gospel right now. He's not looking for anything. Hmm.

We contacted Janet & Fudge, a referral from the Bunch family (less active), on Sunday, and we went back to see them Friday. They are such good people. She's really religious, and Fudge believes, but doesn't go to church much. She told us she hopes that once our new chapel is done (literally right across the street from them) that he'll try it and go. She had her Bible on the table Friday and so we got to talking and she shared about her church and then asked us about ours. They invited us over for dinner next week!

Saturday we were finally able to see the Bailey family again. I love them! We just pop in, usually Wednesday nights, and they drop whatever they're doing and gather the family around. Only Br. Bailey is a member. But they have raised their kids with a strong faith. They always love our lessons. They are so smart! We talked about the Atonement with them and how important it is to helping us return to our Father in Heaven.

Sunday we got to see the Lermas again finally. We planned to address his real intent and have kind of a DTR. Bro. Roberts (her uncle, also a member) was there unexpectedly, so we were thinking of maybe switching our plan. Then Br. Lerma asked if we remembered that we were supposed to cover the 3 kingdoms. So, we decided to teach that. It was neat because Bro. Roberts was totally unaware of our lesson plan,.but as he was sharing his comments, he brought up the concept of real intent/commitment level as one of the distinctions between the terrestrial and celestial people. It flowed nicely. Br. Lerma is a pretty laid back guy, so it was hard to tell how he received the lesson.

Sunday we went out trying to find a bunch of less actives. Either they weren't home or they had moved. Finally, the last one we tried was Sister Dellinger. She welcomed us in and we had a really good visit with her. She's had a lot of health problems that were at least part of why she's less active. But she reads her scriptures daily and her testimony is still strong. She told us she's been feeling small nudgings moving her closer to coming back to church. She said our timing was perfect. What a sweet lady. Hopefully we'll be able to begin regular visits with her and her health and work schedule will work out to allow her to come to church.

During President's interviews, he told me that S. Latu is probably going to train, so I'm pretty sure I'm leaving. We'll find out next week. I had that feeling anyway, but Pres. gave more credence to it. Whatever the Lord asks, I'll do because it's not about me. k

sister humpherys

every day is Christmas

2010-12-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, Christmas came and went. It all seems like a blur. Christmas Eve and Christmas day were awesome. All 18 missionaries in the zone got together and we went caroling Christmas Eve, and then Pres. Ellis (stake president) took us out to an Indian buffet for dinner. It was pretty good! Then we went to his house for a white elephant exchange. With a price limit of $2 and elders, it made for some interesting gifts. I found a really ugly fanny pack and ugly tie at goodwill for my gift. The funny thing is that the elder who got it liked them both! Sister Gibbs and Sister Mat stayed the night with us - it's always fun to be with other missionaries, especially for a sleep over. Though not much sleep was to be had that night. :) Christmas day we woke up and hurried to get ready and then opened gifts. Then we again met up with all the missionaries at the church to make breakfast. YUM! Eggs, waffles, sausage, german pancakes. Then we had a devotional where we all shared our brief testimony of Jesus Christ and this season. Many elders mentioned that it just hadn't felt like Christmas. One pointed out that it was because Christmas now meant something different, not just the gifts and toys. Another elder pointed out that Christmas didn't feel any different than any other day because we get to live and spread the true meaning of Christmas every day. We've got some great missionaries in our zone. After that we played sports and made phone calls until we had to go visit members that night. It sure was a great Christmas.

Sister Latu and I took a long break last Monday to iron out some kinks in our companionship. I had brought up some personal concerns the previous Thursday, and Monday S. Latu brought up some personal concerns, as well as concerns for the companionship. We took a long hard look and we discussed, and we were able to come up with some inspired goals. Our eyes were opened to what was taking place and why the frustration. It really was revelation. The solution we came up with addressed not only how to be a better companionship and help our investigators more, but it also addressed our individual personal concerns. God sure is able to kill two birds with one stone if we let Him. :) We're still working at the implementation, but things are starting to go better in that regard, and we're getting better at working as a whole rather than as two separate parts.

We met with Laurence 3 times this week - 2 lessons and a question/answer session. We taught him first the principle of following the prophet and obedience, stressing the principle of faith with each of them. We brought up how since the prophet is God's mouthpiece, following the prophet is following God and how commandments are given to us to bless us and make us happy. He told us that he understood what we were saying, and in his own words he said we were teaching him about God's prophet and that this is God's way. With that foundation, we then taught Word of Wisdom. I was hesitant to teach it earlier because I wasn't sure how he would react to it. He smokes and occasionally drinks alcohol and coffee. I wanted to make sure he had a good foundation before bringing up something that requires a higher degree of commitment. S. Latu didn't feel my same hesitation, but we decided to wait until this week. When we planned the lesson, I no longer felt hesitant to teach him. I felt he was prepared for it. So we taught it to him and he says he really wants to quit smoking, and the other things wouldn't be a problem to give up. He'll have to take some time to quit, but the desire is good, and he has already been taking steps to quit. We stressed that if he has that desire and commitment to act, the Lord will bless him with strength that he didn't have before when he tried to quit. The question/answer session was good. He continues to read the 3 chapters a week we assign. Hopefully soon it will become an ingrained habit that he does on his own. As for now though, he's up to 1 Nephi 12, and he's learning a lot. Friday we covered repentance. That's been something that's been on his mind almost from the beginning, as we've stressed faith, repentance, baptism, and gift of the Holy Ghost. He feels like he's stuck on the 2nd step. We went through the steps of repentance briefly with him, showing him how much of the repentance process he is actually doing. We assured him that it is a process and that there may be times of relapse, but the mindset is the key indicator. That helped him to see that he's further along in the process than he thought. He's still praying about being baptized, but still no answer. Or, he's not recognizing his answer. We're going to address that this week.

We had a big lesson with Destiny on Tuesday. Her in-laws (recently reactivated because of her asking him to baptize her), Bro. Ruby, and Bro. Hanson (EQP) were all there. We taught about justice and mercy. We more so hit on justice to kind of paint the picture of how much we need mercy. We left her with Alma 42, D&C 45:3-5, 3 Ne. 9:13, and a story from Gospel Principles ch. 12 to read. In the car on the way to our next appointment, S. Latu and I talked about the lesson. She felt it went really well; I didn't quite feel the same. I felt like we spit out what we wanted to share, but I wasn't sure on Destiny being able to internalize it. We had our other lesson on Thursday and it was AWESOME!! She told us she really loved the reading and really got a lot out of it! She LOVED Alma 42 (yes Danae, great chapter!) and she took the time to "connect the dots" with all of the reading. I feel it was the reading assignment that made the Tuesday lesson a success. It was through the reading that Destiny was able to internalize it. YAY!! We talked about the things she learned from the reading, and then tied that in to the next principle of faith. As we were talking, she had a light bulb moment (and she recognized it as such). In a previous lesson, she had said she would be fine with the terrestrial or telestial kingdom, that living with God and Jesus Christ wasn't necessarily something she wanted. We all found that crazy. But Thursday, she said she now understood why she felt that way. She doesn't want to live with a stranger! That was something that popped out to me (aka inspiration) as we were studying for her lesson. She realized that she needs to know Them more in order for her to desire the celestial kingdom. And she does want to know more. Oh, what a sweet dose of personal revelation she received right there during the lesson! In both lessons this week, we talked about loving Christ and Christ loving us. She brought up Thursday a concern that she feels that the emphasis we place on Christ takes away from her loving her Heavenly Father. She respects Christ for what He did, but she feels that the "glory" should go to the Father, since Christ was doing His will. We've talked a lot about the Godhead and how they are all 3 one in purpose, but somewhere there's an incomplete circuit, so that light bulb isn't lighting. It's an interesting concern, one that I'm going to ponder on and see what I can come up with. She told us that she and her mother-in-law decided to take the BOM in 40 days challenge together. Our relief society is doing it in 80 days, but they started in October. Sister Ruby Sr. is a great influence on Destiny. Hopefully she'll be joining our lessons via Skype once a week. :)

We were able to meet briefly with Mary Tuesday night before she left out of town again. She told us she was upset about our previous visit when her friend was there. We were trying to include her friend, and Mary felt like all the focus was on her friend rather than on helping her (Mary) learn. She was upset because she is committed to learning and making changes, whereas her friend is not. She also said she felt dumb when we kept asking her questions because she didn't know the answer. (I think she was just nervous and wanted to perform well and was too focused on trying to figure out what answer we wanted rather than speaking her thoughts.) We were really glad that she brought those things to our attention. After the previous lesson, we knew something wasn't quite right because she acted different during that lesson. We weren't sure exactly what it was, so we were glad she told us. We told her we were sorry for making her feel that way and we'd be better. We told her that we again would like to keep in touch with her while she is away. That didn't happen last time. But the other day she did call us just to say hi and see how we were doing. Hopefully she'll keep up her habit of reading unlike last time.

We went to see Jimmy with Sister Semon Wednesday night. He'd been drinking again. We decided not to teach the lesson we'd prepared, but we did sit and have kind of a DTR with him. I could tell S. Latu's impatience with him. Sister Semon took the time to ask Jimmy some questions about where he's at and if he wants to change and if he knows that Jesus Christ wants to help him. I was grateful for Sister Semon coming with us. In the car afterwards, she shared that she really feels like he is reaching out for help and wants to change, but because of his addiction to alcohol for so long and his depression that it's caused, he is unable to do it on his own. I'm really glad that Sister Semon shared that. Those were my thoughts and feelings, but I know S. Latu has no patience with him and wanted to drop him a long time ago because she didn't feel he was ready to progress. My heart aches for him. It's very interesting to see a man so drunk, yet also see how much the Lord loves him and how much He wants to help. I hope that he can be sober enough to let us help him get the help he needs so that he can accept the gospel. It's exactly what he needs.

Sunday we taught the High Priests. They let us choose what to teach. We decided to pull from Matt. 10 and 28:19-20 and talk about how the calling of the apostles was the same with or without Christ walking with them. We likened that to their calling to be missionaries, with or without a black name tag (a full time mission being likened to walking with Christ directly). We then told them about some of our investigators to show them that the field in Lafayette truly is white and ready to harvest. It was a great lesson and many of the high priests came up and talked to us afterwards. We're slowly getting the ward involved. It's good to see some progress in that regard.

Well, I believe that's all for this week. Take care! Happy new year!

sister humpherys

Jesus is the reason for the season

2010-12-20T10:10:00.001-07:00

PICTURES: Lafayette zone with matching ties (Bullock, Ireland, Archibald, Swanson, Hill, Tenorio, Warden, Eames, Nelson, Jones, Williams, Tapp, Jones, Bedwell?, Gibbs, Mat, Latu, me)
half the mission

It's crazy that Christmas time is here already. And by the time of my next post, it will be passed. It really just snuck up on me. This whole year has gone by way too fast. It seems like just a few weeks ago Sister Jenson and I were eating chips and salsa to celebrate New Year's. It will be that time again shortly.

We got to meet with Mary twice this week. Monday we taught her the cup lesson - visually showing the foundation that Christ established with apostles and teaching the gospel. It was a very effective lesson! Mary wanted to write it all down she liked it so much. She is still a little stuck on being the only black person at church. She questioned why there were no black apostles. She said that's something she's really going to have to work on getting over. S. Latu brought up that there are no Polynesian apostles either, and then Mary said that in her eyes, S. Latu is white. Ha. Then S. Latu said that to her, Mary is white. :) Oh what a sense of humor. We were all laughing for a while. Mary then brought up some questions. She went to church with a family member in Illinois and she got a little study book from the church. She was going through the questions, and she came to a part that was leading one to believe that we were children of Satan rather than children of God. She was quite upset that the pastor was trying to get people to think that. She read the surrounding verses and understood the true context, but she couldn't understand why the pastor was implying something that wasn't true. It was a neat experience to see her recognize the difference between truth and error. She told us after she got to that part in the study book, she didn't look at it anymore. She told us she's realizing more and more that not everyone teaches the truth about faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Oh it's so neat to see progression in people and see their testimony. The second time we met with her, her sister-in-law, Rene, was there. We taught another visual lesson, this time from Alma 50:1-6, about how to protect our families, our beliefs, etc, from the attacks of Satan. Mary really soaks it all in. She's back in the habit of scripture reading, and we see a great change in her - back to normal. However, she called us Friday and had to cancel an appointment and told us she was going to another church Sunday. That's quite worrisome. But hey, maybe she just needs to see for herself that they're not teaching 100% truth, and then she'll come back to church. She's leaving again on Monday for Christmas, so we're hoping to see her once or twice more before she leaves.

Laura is awesome! The lesson we planned for Tuesday was about the resurrection and judgment and we focused it on how learning about those things teach us more about Jesus Christ and bring us closer to Him (since that's what she wants to learn about). As we shared about Christ judging us and how much He knows us, she was really comforted. She said she'd never thought of it really being a merciful judgment. We brought up again her comment about not feeling worthy to be baptized yet. She told us that she feels that since she didn't go to church when she was younger, she feels that makes her unworthy to have His presence. We talked about how baptism totally wipes us clean, and things that happened before are no longer remembered by God. That REALLY hit home to her. She was like "ok, NOW I'll pray to be baptized on Jan. 8th". Our Saturday lesson was even better. She told us about her reading, and she really felt the Spirit as she read. She took lots of notes, and she shared some with us. She then told us that she had asked about being baptized on Jan. 8th. She received very direct revelation, and she recorded it all down. Heavenly Father told her she was on the right path, and she's always been a bright girl and He's proud of her. He told her that He doesn't want her to feel rushed into baptism. I can't remember the rest, but WOW!! So direct! She's more ready for baptism than she realizes!! But it's important that she feels that she's ready, so that feeling may take a little longer. But wow, I am so impressed with her. As soon as she prayed with real intent about the baptism date, such direct revelation came to her. The Spirit was so strong as she shared with us. We were all so happy! We went through D&C 20:37 with her to show her that she has met all the qualifications for baptism, and I think that was a bit of an eye opener for her. After that we talked about Christ satisfying justice so that we can receive mercy and be cleansed from our sins. Each lesson I can see her getting more and more ready for baptism. It's so neat to see that progression.

Laurence continues to do well. In the question/answer visit he asked why Laman and Lemuel were such traitors, and then later he asked about the building in 1 Ne. 8. We were able to pull out the principles of opposition and agency. He's really learning a lot. He as well is right on track for baptism but he doesn't feel it. He feels he needs to know more. We asked him again about praying for Jan 8th. He says he knows baptism is important, but he's still not 100% sold on This Church. He wants it to be true, but he's not sure. I feel that he really does know it, he just isn't quite ready to dive in head first without a better understanding that the pool is more than 3 feet deep so to speak. It'll come in time. He continues to come to church diligently which is awesome!

We got to meet with Anthony twice this week. And he came to church last Sunday! Tuesday we touched on forgiveness, since at the beginning Anthony had expressed concerns about forgiving himself and God forgiving him. We didn't have to spend much time on it though because he told us that he was able to move on after having confessed his sins, and he felt he had forgiven himself and been forgiven. Yay! I can see that he is a different person after these visits focusing on repentance. It's been great to be able to focus so directly on what he needed and see him apply it and have a change in his life. We talked about the next step for him, and he said he needs to stop some habits and start others. He wants to be a better person. Very admirable for a 21 year old guy. On Friday we talked about scripture study, and Anthony said that was one of the habits he wanted to get in to, and he was pretty excited about doing it. It's been so neat to work with him. Again, it's been a blessing that he's heard all the lessons before so we can focus on what he needs and go at his pace. The bad thing is that he is now home for the holidays until like Jan. 10th. And the Boomhowers are moving for 9 months. So we won't get to see him for a while, and when he comes back, we'll have to use different fellowshippers. The Boomhowers have been awesome, so hopefully we can find another family to work well.

Wednesday we met with Elizabeth and her 3 girls again. We shared the visual lesson from Alma 50 and talked about the importance of family scripture study and family prayer. The girls really liked it and were excited at least for family prayer, hopefully for scripture reading too. The girls are young - 5, 7, 10 - and they love to pray. They aren't very confident in it yet, but they love to do it. Elizabeth said it'd been crazy for her so she wasn't able to read much in the BOM yet. But SHE brought that up at the very beginning without us asking, so that's a good sign that she knows why we're here.

We were finally able to meet with the Workmans again. We shared the miracle from Luke 5:1-11 about Christ blessing Peter, James, and John with an abundance of fishes after teaching them. It was a really great discussion as we focused on what we learn about Christ from that miracle. It really hit home to them as we brought up that Christ is aware of and will provide for our temporal needs. Br. Workman is graduating, and is in desperate need of a job with no real prospects yet. They've been worried about that, so I think our lesson was very timely for them.

Friday we took Sister Franchois with us to see some people. We went to contact Richard, a referral from church headquarters. When Richard came to the door, he warmly greeted S. Franchois by her first name. We were confused. We soon found out that Pat - Richard's wife - and S. Franchois used to work together and the two couples are really good friends. Talk about an inspired member exchange!! We got to sit and have a visit and share a brief message and set up a return appointment with them. I'm convinced that all that was only possible because of S. Franchois' presence.

Saturday we met with Latasha again. Her boyfriend Calvin sat in with us too. She had read the REST pamphlet and had a question about Joseph Smith seeing God. We shared with her some other examples of prophets seeing God. Her stumbling block came not necessarily from Joseph's experience, but because she believes God is just a Spirit, everywhere and nowhere. (It's crazy to me how people can believe that, yet also believe that He is our Father. It seems so inconsistent to me.) We decided to spend our time talking about the role of prophets, how they're chosen, etc. She was very interested and agreed with what we shared about prophets, and then she was very shocked to hear that we have a prophet today. Because of time we had to leave her on a cliffhanger, but maybe that's a good thing - make her anticipate our next visit. She's so eager to learn. Calvin enjoyed sitting in and he shared his thoughts about things as well. The bad thing about the holidays is that people leave for a few weeks. :( I'm glad I'm not serving on campus though!

Saturday I also had the opportunity to return to Fishers!! Devon was baptized by Naoto. His original date was Nov. 6th, but things kept coming up. Devon is a great young man. Naoto is too. It was a great experience for him to perform the baptism. Devon was excited, and I could see him just soaking up everything Bishop shared in the talk about the Holy Ghost. The Spirit was really strong as they entered into the font. What a blessing it was to be a part of that. Oh, I'm so happy for him! None of his family was able to attend, so that was sad, but hopefully he will continue to be a good example to them. What a neat thing it will be if he chooses to serve a mission.
It was also great to see some ward members, most of all Sister Norton and Hannah. Oh it warmed my heart to see them. And they brought cookies for me! Paul was supposed to speak at the baptism, but he ended up being out of town, so that was a bummer. But he went to Utah - what a great experience!

We went with Destiny and her in-laws to go howl with the wolves. I'm not joking. It was a once in a lifetime experience, because I'll never go do that again. :)

Zone conference was great. Full of the Christmas Spirit, and it was great to spend time with other missionaries. We had some fun games, and great food. Pictures are attached. S. Marler from Kokomo was there in charge of the food and I got to talk with her and her daughter Caitlin. I was excited to see them both.

Well, time is short. P-day is over soon because Christmas will be our p-day. Love you all! Merry Christmas!

sister humpherys